







I! 
























o i3 


/ 


THE 


p jT r 

3 & 


LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, 

AND 


OTHER SKETCHES. 

BY 


BRET HARTE. 

1 I 



BOSTON: 

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 

1873. 


> J 





Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO., 

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 


Source unknown 

trfefi a I&2Q 



University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 


PREFACE. 


SERIES of designs — suggested, I think, by 



ii. Hogarth’s familiar cartoons of the Industrious' 
and Idle Apprentices — I remember as among the 
earliest efforts at moral teaching in California, They 
represented the respective careers of The Honest and 
Dissolute Miners : the one, as I recall him, retrograd- 
ing through successive planes of dirt, drunkenness, 
disease, and death ; the other advancing by corre- 
sponding stages to affluence and a white shirt. What- 
ever may have been the artistic defects of these 
drawings, the moral at least was obvious and distinct. 
That it failed, however, — as it did, — to produce the 
desired reform in mining morality may have been 
owing to the fact that the average miner refused to 
recognize himself in either of these positive char- 
acters ; and that even he who might have sat 
for the model of the Dissolute Miner was perhaps 
dimly conscious of some limitations and circumstances 
which partly relieved him from responsibility. “ Yer 
see,” remarked such a critic to the writer, in the un- 
translatable poetry of his class, “ it ain’t no square 
game. They ’ve just put up the keerds on that chap 
from the start.” 


IV 


PREFACE. 


With this lamentable example before me, I trust 
that in the following sketches I have abstained from 
any positive moral. I might have painted my villains 
of the blackest dye, — so black, indeed, that the origi- 
nals thereof would have contemplated them with the 
glow of comparative virtue. I might have made it 
impossible for them to have performed a virtuous or 
generous action, and have thus avoided that moral 
confusion which is 'apt to arise in the contemplation 
of mixed motives and qualities. But I should have 
burdened myself with the responsibility of their 
creation, which, as a humble writer of romance and 
entitled to no particular reverence, I did not care 
to do. 

I fear I cannot claim, therefore, any higher motive 
than to illustrate an era of w T hich Californian history 
has preserved the incidents more often than the char- 
acter of the actors, — an era which the panegyrist was 
too often content to bridge over with a general com- 
pliment to its survivors, — ah era still so recent that in 
attempting to revive its poetry, I am conscious also 
of awakening the more prosaic recollections of these 
same survivors, — and yet an era replete with a certain 
heroic Greek poetry, of which perhaps none were more 
unconscious than the heroes themselves. And I shall 
be quite content to have collected here merely the 
materials for the Iliad that is yet to be sung. 


San Francisco, December 24, 1869. 


CONTENTS 


SKETCHES 

Pagb 

The Luck of Roaring Camp 1 

The Outcasts of Poker Flat .... 19 

Miggles 37 

Tennessee’s Partner 56 

The Idyl of Red Gulch 72 

Brown of Calaveras 89 

High-Water Mark . . . . . . . 107 

A Lonely Ride 121 

The Man of No Account 131 

STORIES. 

Mliss 141 

The Right Eye of the Commander . . . 184 

Notes by Flood and Field 198 

BOHEMIAN PAPERS. 

Mission Dolores 237 

John Chinaman - . 242 

From a Back Window 248 

Boonder • 253 























































































































SKETCHES. 



THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 



‘HERE was commotion in Roaring Camp. It 


-L could not have been a fight, for in 1850 that 
was not novel enough to have called together the 
entire settlement. The ditches and claims were 
not only deserted, but “ Tuttle’s grocery ” had con- 
tributed its gamblers, who, it will be remembered, 
calmly continued their game the day that French- 
Pete and Kanaka Joe shot each other to death over 
the bar in the front room. The whole camp was 
collected before a rude cabin on the outer edge of 
the clearing. Conversation was carried on in a low 
tone, but the name of a woman was frequently 
repeated. It was a name familiar enough in the 
camp, — “ Cherokee Sal.” 

Perhaps the less said of her the better. She 
was a coarse, and, it is to be feared, a very sinful 
woman. But at that time she was the only wo- 
man in Roaring Camp, and was just then lying in 
sore extremity, when she most needed the minis- 
tration of her own sex. Dissolute, abandoned, 
and irreclaimable, she was yet suffering a martyr- 
dom hard enough to bear even when veiled by 


i 


A 


2 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


sympathizing womanhood, but now terrible in 
her loneliness. The primal curse had come to 
her in that original isolation which must have 
made the punishment of the first transgression 
so dreadful. It was, perhaps, part of the expia- 
tion of her sin, that, at a moment when she most 
lacked her sex’s intuitive tenderness and care, she 
met only the half-contemptuous faces of her mas- 
culine associates. Yet a few of the spectators 
were, I think, touched by her sufferings. Sandy 
Tipton thought it was “ rough on Sal,” and, in the 
contemplation of her condition, for a moment rose 
superior to the fact that he had an ace and two 
bowers in his sleeve. 

It will be seen, also, that the situation was novel. 
Deaths were by no means uncommon in Eoaring 
Camp, but a birth was a new thing. People had 
been dismissed the camp effectively, finally," and 
with no possibility of return ; but this was the first 
time that anybody had been introduced ab initio. 
Hence the excitement. 

“You go in there, Stumpy,” said a prominent 
citizen known as “ Kentuck,” addressing one of 
the loungers. “ Go in there, and see what you kin 
do. You ’ve had experience in them things.” 

Perhaps there was a fitness in the selection. 
Stumpy, in other climes, had been the putative 
head of two families ; in fact, it was owing to some 
legal informality in these proceedings that Eoaring 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


3 


Camp — a city of refuge — was indebted ta his 
company. The crowd approved the choice, and 
Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. 
The door closed on the extempore surgeon and 
midwife, and Koaring Camp sat down outside, 
smoked its pipe, and awaited the issue. 

The assemblage numbered about a hundred men. 
One or two of these were actual fugitives from 
justice, some were criminal, and all were reckless. 
Physically, they exhibited no indication of their 
past lives and character. The greatest scamp had 
a Eaphael face, with a profusion of blond hair ; 
Oakhurst, a gambler, had the melancholy air and 
intellectual abstraction of a Hamlet; the coolest 
and most courageous man was scarcely over five 
feet in height, with a soft voice and an embarrassed, 
timid manner. The term “roughs” applied to 
them was a distinction rather than a definition. 
Perhaps in the minor details of fingers, toes, ears, 
etc., the camp may have been deficient, but these 
slight omissions did not detract from their ag- 
gregate force. The strongest man had but three 
fingers on his right hand ; the best shot had but 
one eye. 

Such was the physical aspect of the men that 
were dispersed around the cabin. The camp lay 
in a triangular valley, between two hills and a 
river. The only outlet was a steep trail over the 
summit of a hill that faced the cabin, now illumi- 


4 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


nated by the rising moon. The suffering woman 
might have seen it from the rude bunk whereon 
she lay, — seen it winding like a silver thread 
until it was lost in the stars above. 

A fire of withered pine-boughs added sociability 
to the gathering. By degrees the natural levity 
of Boaring Camp returned. Bets were freely offered 
and taken regarding the result. Three to five that 
“ Sal would get through with it ” ; even, that the 
child would survive ; side bets as to the sex and 
complexion of the coming stranger. In the midst 
of an excited discussion an exclamation came 
from those nearest the door, and the camp stopped 
to listen. Above the swaying and moaning of the 
pines, the swift rush of the river, and the crack- 
ling of the fire, rose a sharp, querulous cry, — a cry 
unlike anything heard before in the camp. The 
pines stopped moaning, the river ceased to rush, 
and the fire to crackle. It seemed as if Nature 
had stopped to listen too. 

The camp rose to its feet as one man ! It was 
proposed to explode a barrel of gunpowder, but, in. 
consideration of the situation of the mother, bet- 
ter counsels prevailed, and only a few revolvers 
were discharged ; for, whether owing to the rude 
surgery of the camp, or some other reason, Chero- 
kee Sal was sinking fast. Within an houi she had 
climbed, as it were, that rugged road that led to 
the stars, and so passed out of Boaring Camp, its 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


5 


sin and shame forever. I do not think that the an- 
nouncement disturbed them much, except in spec- 
ulation as to the fate of the child. “ Can he live 
now?” was asked of Stumpy. The answer was 
doubtful. The only other being of Cherokee Sal’s 
sex and maternal condition in the settlement was 
an ass. There was some conjecture as to fitness, 
but the experiment was tried. It was less prob- 
lematical than the ancient treatment of Eomulus 
and Bemus, and apparently as successful. 

When these details were completed, which ex- 
hausted another hour, the door was opened, and the 
anxious crowd of men who had already formed 
themselves into a queue, entered in single file. 
Beside the low bunk or shelf, on which the figure 
of the mother was starkly outlined below the 
blankets stood a pine table. On this a candle-box 
was placed, and within it, swathed in staring red 
flannel, lay the last arrival at Eoaring Camp. Be- 
side the candle-box was placed a hat. Its use was 
soon indicated. “ Gentlemen,” said Stumpy, with 
a singular mixture of authority and ex officio com- 
placency, — “ Gentlemen will please pass in at the 
front door, round the table, and out at the back 
door. Them as wishes to contribute anything to- 
ward the orphan will find a hat handy.” The first 
man entered with his hat on ; he uncovered, how- 
ever, as he looked about him, and so, unconscious- 
ly, set an example to the next. In such commu- 


6 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


nities good and bad actions are catching. As the 
procession filed in, comments were audible, — crit- 
icisms addressed, perhaps, rather to Stumpy, in 
the character of showman, — “ Is that him ? ” 
“ mighty small specimen ” ; “ has n’t mor’n got the 
color ” ; “ ain’t bigger nor a derringer.” The con- 
tributions were as characteristic : A silver tobacco- 
box ; a doubloon ; a navy revolver, silver mounted ; 
a gold specimen ; a very beautifully embroidered 
lady’s handkerchief (from Oakhurst the gambler) ; 
a diamond breastpin ; a diamond ring (suggested 
by the pin, with the remark from the giver that he 
“ saw that pin and went two diamonds better ”) ; 
a slung shot ; a Bible (contributor not detected) ; 
a golden spur ; a silver teaspoon (the initials, I re- 
gret to say, were not the giver’s) ; a pair of sur- 
geon’s shears ; a lancet ; a Bank of England note 
for £ 5 ; and about $ 200 in loose gold and silver 
coin. During these proceedings Stumpy maintained 
a silence as impassive as the dead on his left, a 
gravity as inscrutable as that of the newly born on 
his right. Only on© incident occurred to break 
the monotony of the curious procession. As Ken- 
tuck bent over the candle-box half curiously, the 
child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at 
his groping finger, and held it fast for a moment. 
Kentuck looked foolish and embarrassed. Some- 
thing like a blush tried to assert itself in his 
weather-beaten cheek. “ The d — d little cuss ! ” 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


7 


he said, as he extricated his finger, with, perhaps, 
more tenderness and care than he might have been 
deemed capable of showing. He held that finger 
a little apart from its fellows as he went out, and 
examined it curiously. The examination provoked 
the same original remark in regard to the child. 
In fact, he seemed to enjoy repeating it. “ He 
rastled with my finger,” he remarked to Tipton, 
holding up the member, “ the d — d little cuss ! ” 

It was four o’clock before the camp sought re- 
pose. A light burnt in the cabin where the 
watchers sat, for Stumpy did not go to bed that 
night. Nor did Kentuck. He drank quite freely, 
and related with great gusto his experience, inva- 
riably ending with his characteristic condemnation 
of the new-comer. It seemed to relieve him of 
any unjust implication of sentiment, and Kentuck 
had the weaknesses of the nobler sex. When 
everybody else had gone to bed, he walked down 
to the river, and whistled reflectingly. Then he 
walked up the gulch, past the cabin, still whistling 
with demonstrative unconcern. At a large red- 
wood tree he paused and retraced his steps, and 
again passed the cabin. Half-way down to the 
river’s bank he again paused, and then returned 
and knocked at the door. It was opened by 
Stumpy. “ How goes it ? ” said Kentuck, looking 
past Stumpy toward the candle-box. “ All serene,” 
replied Stumpy. “ Anything up ? ” “ Nothing.” 


8 THE LUCK OF SOARING CAMP. 

There was a pause — an embarrassing one — • 
Stumpy still holding the door. Then Kentuck 
had recourse to his finger, which he held up to 
Stumpy. “ Eastled with it, — the d — d little cuss,” 
he said, and retired. 

The next day Cherokee Sal had such * rude se- 
pulture as Eoaring Camp afforded. After her 
body had been committed to the hillside, there 
was a formal meeting of the camp to discuss what 
should be done with her infant. A resolution to 
adopt it was unanimous and enthusiastic. But an 
animated discussion in regard to the manner and 
feasibility of providing for its wants at once sprung 
up. It was remarkable that the argument partook 
of none of those fierce personalities with which 
discussions were usually conducted at Eoaring 
Camp. Tipton proposed that they should send the 
child to Eed Dog, — a distance of forty miles, — 
where female attention could be procured. But 
the unlucky suggestion met with fierce and unan- 
imous opposition. It was evident that no plan 
which entailed parting from their new acquisition 
would for a moment be entertained. “ Besides,” 
said Tom Eyder, “ them fellows at Eed Dog would 
swap it, and ring in somebody else on us.” A dis- 
belief in the honesty of other camps prevailed at 
Eoaring Camp as in other places. 

The introduction of a female nurse in the camp 
also met with objection. It was argued that no 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 9 

decent woman could be prevailed to accept Boar- 
ing Camp as her home, and the speaker urged 
that “ they did n’t want any more of the other 
kind.” This unkind allusion to the defunct moth- 
er, harsh as it may seem, was the first spasm of 
propriety, — the first symptom of the camp’s re- 
generation. Stumpy advanced nothing. Perhaps 
he felt a certain delicacy in interfering with the 
selection of a possible successor in office. But 
when questioned, he averred stoutly that he and 
“ Jinny ” — the mammal before alluded to — could 
manage to rear the child. There was something 
original, independent, and heroic about the plan 
that pleased the camp. Stumpy was retained. 
Certain articles were sent for to Sacramento. 
“ Mind,” said the treasurer, as he pressed a bag of 
gold-dust into the expressman’s hand, “the best 
that can be got, — lace, you know, and filigree-work 
and frills, — d — m the cost ! ” 

Strange to say, the child thrived. Perhaps the 
invigorating climate of the mountain camp was 
compensation for material deficiencies. Nature 
took the foundling to her broader breast. In that 
rare atmosphere of the Sierra foot-hills, — that air 
pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial 
at once bracing and exhilarating, — he may have 
found food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry 
that transmuted asses’ milk to lime and phospho- 
rus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the 


10 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


latter and good nursing. “ Me and that ass,” he 
would say, “ has been father and mother to him ! 
Don’t you,” he would add, apostrophizing the help- 
less bundle before him, “ never go back on us.” 

By the time he was a month old, the necessity 
of giving him a name became apparent. He had 
generally been known as “ the Kid,” “ Stumpy’s 
boy,” “the Cayote” (an allusion to his vocal 
powers), and even by Kentuck’s endearing di- 
minutive of “the d — d little cuss.” But these 
•were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were 
at last dismissed under another influence. Gam- 
blers and adventurers are generally superstitious, 
and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had 
brought “the luck” to Boaring Camp. It was 
certain that of late they had been successful. 
“ Luck ” was the name agreed upon, with the pre- 
fix of Tommy for greater convenience. Ho allu- 
sion was made to the mother, and the father was 
unknown. “It’s better,” said the philosophical 
Oakhurst, “ to take a fresh deal all round. Call 
him Luck, and start him fair.” A day was accord- 
ingly set apart for the christening. What was 
meant by this ceremony the reader may imagine, 
who has already gathered some idea of the reck- 
less irreverence of Boaring Camp. The master of 
ceremonies was one “Boston,” a noted wag, and 
the occasion seemed to promise the greatest face- 
tiousness. This -ingenious satirist had spent two 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


11 


days in preparing a burlesque of the church ser- 
vice, with pointed local allusions. The choir was 
properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was to stand 
godfather. But after the procession had marched 
to the grove with music and banners, and the child 
had been deposited before a mock altar, Stumpy 
stepped before the expectant crowd. “ It ain’t my 
style to spoil fun, boys,” said the little man, stout- 
ly, eying the faces around him, “ but it strikes me 
that this thing ain’t exactly on the squar. It ’s 
playing it pretty low down on this yer baby to ring 
in fun on him that he ain’t going to understand. 
And ef there ’s going to be any godfathers round, 
I ’d like to see who ’s got any better rights than 
me.” A silence followed Stumpy’s speech. To 
the credit of all humorists be it said, that the first 
man to acknowledge its justice was the satirist, 
thus stopped of his fun. “But,” said Stumpy, 
quickly, following up his advantage, “ we ’re here 
for a christening, and we ’ll have it. I proclaim 
you Thomas Luck, according to the laws of the 
United States and the State of California, so help 
me God.” It was the first time that the name of 
the Deity had been uttered otherwise than pro- 
fanely in the camp. The form of christening was 
perhaps even more ludicrous than the satirist had 
conceived; but, strangely enough, nobody saw it 
and nobody laughed. “ Tommy ” was christened 
as seriously as he would have been under a Chris- 


12 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


tian roof, and cried and was comforted in as ortho- 
dox fashion. 

And so the work of regeneration began in Eoar- 
ing Camp. Almost imperceptibly a change came 
over the settlement. The cabin assigned to “ Tom- 
my Lnck ” — or “ The Luck,” as he was more 
frequently called — first showed signs of improve- 
ment. It was kept scrupulously clean and whiter 
washed. Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered. 
The rosewood cradle — packed eighty miles by 
mule — had, in Stumpy’s way of putting it, “ sorter 
killed the rest of the furniture.” So the rehabili- 
tation of the cabin became a necessity. The men 
who were in the habit of lounging in at Stumpy’s 
to see “ how The Luck got on ” seemed to appre- 
ciate the change, and, in self-defence, the rival es- 
tablishment of “ Tuttle’s grocery ” bestirred itself, 
and imported a carpet and mirrors. The reflections 
of the latter on the appearance of Eoaring Camp 
tended to produce stricter habits of personal clean- 
liness. Again, Stumpy imposed a kind of quaran- 
tine upon those who aspired to the honor and 
privilege of holding “ The Luck.” It was a cruel 
mortification to Kentuck — who, in the careless- 
ness of a large nature and the habits of frontier 
life, had begun to regard all garments as a second 
cuticle, which, like a snake’s, only sloughed off 
through decay — to be debarred this privilege 
from certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 13 

subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter 
appeared regularly every afternoon in a clean shirt, 
and face still shining from his ablutions. Nor 
were moral and social sanitary laws neglected. 
“ Tommy,” who was supposed to spend his whole 
existence in a persistent attempt to repose, must 
not ‘be disturbed by noise. The shouting and yell- 
ing which had gained the camp its infelicitous 
title were not permitted within hearing distance 
of Stumpy’s. The men conversed in whispers, or 
smoked with Indian gravity. Profanity was tacitly 
given up in these sacred precincts, and throughout 
the camp a popular form of expletive, known as 
“ D — n the luck ! ” and “ Curse the luck ! ” was 
abandoned, as having a new personal bearing. Vo- 
cal music was not interdicted, being supposed to 
have a soothing, tranquillizing quality, and one 
song, sung by “ Man-o’-AVar Jack,” an English 
sailor, from her Majesty’s Australian colonies, 
was quite popular as a lullaby. It was a lugu- 
brious recital of the exploits of “the Arethusa, 
Seventy-four,” in a muffled minor, ending with a 
prolonged dying fall at the burden of each verse, 
“ On b-o-o-o-ard of the Arethusa.” It was a fine 
sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from 
side to side as if with the motion of a ship, and 
crooning forth this naval ditty. Either through 
the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his 
song, — it contained ninety stanzas, and was con- 


14 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


tinued with conscientious deliberation to the bitter 
end, — the lullaby generally had the desired effect. 
At such times the men would lie at full length 
under the trees, in the soft summer twilight, smok- 
ing their pipes and drinking in the melodious 
utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pas- 
toral happiness pervaded the camp. “This ’ere 
kind o’ think,” said the Cockney Simmons, medi- 
tatively reclining on his elbow, “is ’evingly.” It 
reminded him of Greenwich. 

On the long summer days The Luck was usually 
carried to the gulch, from whence the golden store 
of Roaring Camp was taken. There, on a blanket 
spread over pine-boughs, he would lie while the 
men were working in the ditches below. . Latterly, 
there was a rude attempt to decorate this bower 
with flowers and sweet-smelling shrubs, and gen- 
erally some one would bring him a cluster of wild 
honeysuckles, azaleas, or the painted blossoms of 
Las Mariposas. The men had suddenly awakened 
to the fact that there were beauty and signifp 
cance in these trifles, which they had so long trod- 
den carelessly beneath their feet. A flake of glit- 
tering mica, a fragment of variegated quartz, a 
bright pebble from the bed of the creek, became 
beautiful to eyes thus cleared and strengthened,, 
and were invariably put aside for “ The Luck.” It 
was wonderful how many treasures the woods and 
hillsides yielded that “ would do for Tommy.” Sur- 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


15 


rounded by playthings such as never child out of 
fairy -land had before, it is to be hoped that Tommy 
was content. He appeared to be securely happy- 
albeit there was an infantine gravity about hin> 
a contemplative light in his round gray eyes* 
that sometimes worried Stumpy. He was always 
tractable and quiet, and it is recorded that once, 
having crept beyond his “ corral,” — a hedge of 
tessellated pine-boughs, which surrounded his bed, 
— he dropped over the bank on his head in the 
soft earth, and remained with his mottled legs in 
the air in that position for at least five minutes 
with unflinching gravity. He was extricated with- 
out a -murmur. I hesitate to record the many 
other instances of his sagacity, which rest, unfor- 
tunately, upon the statements of prejudiced friends. 
Some of them were not without a tinge of super- 
stition. “ I crep’ up the bank just now,” said Ken- 
tuck one day, in a breathless state of excitement, 
“ and dern my skin if he was n’t a talking to a jay- 
bird as was a sittin’ on his lap. There they was, 
just as free and sociable as anything you please, 
a jawin’ at eacli other just like two cherry-bums.” 
Howbeit, whether creeping over the pine-boughs 
or lying lazily on his back blinking at the leaves 
above him, to him the birds sang, the squirrels 
chattered, and the flowers bloomed. Nature was 
his nurse and playfellow. For him she would let 
slip between the leaves golden shafts of sunlight 


16 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


that fell just within his grasp; she would send 
wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of 
bay and resinous gums ; to him the tall red-woods 
nodded familiarly and sleepily, the bumble-bees 
buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumbrous accom- 
paniment. 

Such was the golden summer of ‘Boaring Camp. 
They were “ flush times,” — and the Luck was with 
them. The claims had yielded enormously. The 
camp was jealous of its privileges and looked sus- 
piciously on strangers. No encouragement was 
given to immigration, and, to make their seclusion 
more perfect, the land on either side of the moun- 
tain wall that surrounded the camp they duly pre- 
empted. This, and a reputation for singular pro- 
ficiency with the revolver, kept the reserve of 
Eoaring Camp inviolate. The expressman — their 
only connecting link with the surrounding world 
— sometimes told wonderful stories of the camp. 
He would say, “They ’ve a street up there in 
‘ Eoaring,’ that would lay over any street in Eed 
Dog. They ’ve got vines and flowers round their 
houses, and they wash themselves twice a day. 
But they ’re mighty rough on strangers, and they 
worship an Ingin baby.” 

With the prosperity of the camp came a desire 
for further improvement. It was proposed to build 
a hotel in the following spring, and to invite one 
or two decent families to reside there for the sake 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


17 


of "The Luck/’ — who might perhaps profit by fe- 
male companionship. The sacrifice that this con- 
cession to the sex cost these men, who were 
fiercely sceptical in regard to its general virtue 
and usefulness, can only be accounted for by their 
affection for Tommy. A few still held out. But 
the resolve could not be carried into effect for three 
months, and the minority meekly yielded in the 
hope that something might turn up to prevent it. 
And it did. 

The winter of 1851 will long be remembered in 
the foot-hills. The snow lay deep on the Sierras, 
and every mountain creek became a river, and 
every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was 
transformed into a tumultuous watercourse that 
descended the hillsides, tearing down giant trees 
and scattering its drift and debris along the 
plain. Red Dog had been twice under water, and 
Roaring Camp had been forewarned. "Water put 
the gold into them gulches,” said Stumpy. “ It ’s 
been here once and will be here again ! ” And that 
night the North Fork suddenly leaped over its 
banks, and swept up the triangular valley of Roar- 
ing Camp. 

In the confusion of rushing water, crushing trees, 
and crackling timber, and the darkness which 
seemed to flow with the water and blot out the fair 
valley, but little could be done to collect the scat- 
tered camp. When the morning broke, the cabin of 


IS 


THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP. 


Stumpy nearest the river-bank was gone. Highel 
up the gulch they found the body of its unlucky 
owner; but the pride, the hope, the joy, the 
Luck, of Roaring Camp had disappeared. They 
were returning with sad hearts, when a shout from 
the bank recalled them. 

It was a relief-boat from down the river. They 
had picked up, they said, a man and an infant, 
nearly exhausted, about two miles below. Did 
anybody know them, and did they belong here ? 

It needed but a glance to show them Kentuck 
lying there, cruelly crushed and bruised, but still 
holding the Luck of Roaring Camp in his arms. 
As they bent over the strangely assorted pair, they 
saw that the child was cold and pulseless. “ He 
is dead,” said one. Kentuck opened his eyes. 
“ Dead ? ” he repeated feebly. “ Yes, my man, and 
you are dying too.” A smile lit the eyes of the 
expiring Kentuck. “ Dying,” he repeated, “ he ’s a 
taking me with him, — tell the boys I’ve got the 
Luck with me now ” ; and the strong man, cling- 
ing to the frail babe as a drowning man is said to 
cling to a straw, drifted away into the shadowy 
river that flows forever to the unknown sea. 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 

S Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into 



JT\. the main street of Poker Elat on the morning 
of the twenty- third of November, 1850, he was 
conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere 
since the preceding night. Two or three men, 
conversing earnestly together, ceased as he 
approached, and exchanged significant glances. 
There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in 
a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked 
ominous. 

Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed 
small concern in these indications. Whether he 
was conscious of any predisposing cause, was an- 
other question. “ I reckon they ’re after some- 
body,” he reflected ; “ likely it ’s me.” He returned 
to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had 
been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat 
from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his 
mind of any further conjecture. 

In point of fact, Poker Flat was “ after some- 
body.” It had lately suffered the loss of several 
thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a promi- 
nent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of vir- 


20 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


tuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable 
as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret 
committee had determined to rid the town of all 
improper persons. This was done permanently in 
regard of two men who were then hanging from 
the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and tempo- 
rarily in the banishment of certain other objec- 
tionable characters. I regret to say that some of 
these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, how- 
ever, to state that their impropriety w T as profes- 
sional, and it was only in such easily established 
standards of evil that Poker Plat ventured to sit 
in judgment. 

Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he 
was included in this category. A few of the com- 
mittee had urged hanging him as a possible exam- 
ple, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves 
from his pockets of the sums he had won from 
them. “ It ’s agin justice,” said Jim Wheeler, “ to 
let this yer young man from Eoaring Camp — an 
entire stranger — carry away our money.” But a 
crude sentiment of equity residing in the breast.} 
of those who had been fortunate enough to win 
from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local 
prejudice. 

Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with phil- 
osophic calmness, none the less coolly that he 
was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He 
was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 21 

With him life was at best an uncertain game, and 
he recognized the usual- percentage in favor of the 
dealer. 

A body of armed men accompanied the deport- 
ed wickedness of Poker Plat to the outskirts of 
the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was 
known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose 
intimidation the armed escort was intended, the 
expatriated party consisted of a young woman fa- 
miliarly known as “ The Duchess ” ; another, who 
had won the title of “Mother Shipton”; and 
“ Uncle Billy,” a suspected sluice-robber and con- 
firmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no 
comments from the spectators, nor was any word 
uttered by the escort. Only, when the gulch 
which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Plat 
was reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the 
point. The exiles were forbidden to return at the 
peril of their lives. 

As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings 
found vent in a few hysterical tears from the 
Duchess, some bad language from Mother Ship- 
ton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from 
Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone 
remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother 
Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to 
the repeated statements of the Duchess that 
she would die in the road, and to the alarming 
oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle 


22 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 

Billy as he rode forward. With the easy good- 
liumor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon 
exchanging his own riding-horse, “ Five Spot,” for 
the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But 
even this act did not draw the party into any 
closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted 
her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded 
coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of 
“ Five Spot ” with malevolence, and Uncle Billy in- 
cluded the whole party in one sweeping anathema. 

The road to Sandy Bar — a camp that, not hav- 
ing as yet experienced the regenerating influences 
of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer some 
invitation to the emigrants — lay over a steep 
mountain range. It was distant a day’s severe 
travel. In that advanced season, the party soon 
passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the 
foot-hills into the dry, cold, bracing air of the 
Sierras. The trail was narrow and difficult. At 
noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon 
the ground, declared her intention of going no far- 
ther, and the party halted. 

The spot was singularly wild and impressive. 
A wooded amphitheatre, surrounded on three sides 
by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gen- 
tly toward the crest of another precipice that over- 
looked the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most 
suitable spot for a camp, had camping been advis- 
able. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


23 


the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and 
the party were not equipped or provisioned for de- 
lay. This fact he pointed out to his companions 
curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly 
of “ throwing up their hand before the game was 
played out.” But they were furnished with liquor, 
which in this emergency stood them in place of 
food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his 
remonstrances, it was not long before they were 
more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy 
passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of 
stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother 
Shipton snored. Mr. Oakliurst alone remained 
erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying 
them. 

Mr. Oakliurst did not drink. It interfered with 
a profession which required coolness, impassive- 
ness, and presence of mind, and, in his own lan- 
guage, he “ could n’t afford it.” As he gazed at 
his recumbent fellow-exiles, the loneliness begot- 
ten of his pariah-trade, his habits of life, his very 
vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him. 
He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, 
washing his hands and face, and other acts charac- 
teristic of his studiously neat habits, and for a 
moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of 
deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions 
never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not 
help feeling the want of that excitement which. 


24 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


singularly enough, was most conducive to that 
calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He 
looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand 
feet sheer above the circling pines around him j 
at the sky, ominously clouded ; at the valley be- 
low, already deepening into shadow. And, doing 
so, suddenly he heard his own name called. 

A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the 
fresh, open face of the new-comer Mr. Oakhurst 
recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as “ The 
Innocent ” of Sandy Bar. He had met him some 
months before over a “ little game,” and had, with 
perfect equanimity, won the entire fortune — 
amounting to some forty dollars — of that guile- 
less youth. After the game was finished, Mr. 
Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator behind the 
door and thus addressed him : “ Tommy, you ’re a 
good little man, but you can’t gamble worth a 
cent. Don’t try it over again.” He then handed 
him his money’back, pushed him gently from the 
room, and so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson. 

There was a remembrance of this in his boyish 
and enthusiastic greeting of Mr.' Oakhurst. He 
had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek his 
fortune. “Alone?” Ho, not exactly alone; in 
fact (a giggle), he had run away with Piney 
Woods. Did n’t Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney ? 
She that used to wait on the table at the Tem- 
perance House ? They had been engaged a long 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


25 


time, but old Jake Woods had objected, and so 
they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to 
be married, and here they were. And they were 
tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a 
place to camp and company. All this the Inno- 
cent delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely 
damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine- 
tree, where she had been blushing unseen, and 
rode to the side of her lover. - 

Mr. Oakliurst seldom troubled himself with sen- 
timent, still less with propriety; but he had a 
vague idea that the situation was not fortunate. 
He retained, however, his presence of mind suffi- 
ciently to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say 
something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to 
recognize in Mr. Oakliurst’s kick a superior power 
that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored 
to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, 
but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that 
there was no provision, nor means of making a 
camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met this 
objection by assuring the party that he was pro- 
vided with an extra mule loaded with provisions, 
and by the discovery of a rude attempt at a log- 
nouse near the trail. “ Piney can stay with Mrs. 
Oakhurst,” said the Innocent, pointing to the Duch- 
ess, “ and I can shift for myself.” 

Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst’s admonishing foot 
saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of 
2 


26 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire 
up the canon until he could recover his gravity. 
There he confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, 
with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, 
and the usual profanity. But when he returned 
to the party, he found them seated by a fire — for 
the air had grown strangely chill and the sky 
overcast — in apparently amicable conversation. 
Piney was actually talking in an impulsive, girlish 
fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an 
interest and animation she had not shown for 
many days. The Innocent was holding forth, ap- 
parently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and 
Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into 
amiability. “ Is this yer a d — d picnic ? ” said 
Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the 
sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the teth- 
ered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea 
mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed 
his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, 
for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram 
his fist into his mouth. 

As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, 
a slight, breeze rocked the tops of the pine-trees, 
and moaned through their long and gloomy aisles. 
The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine- 
boughs, was set apart for the ladies. As the lovers 
parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a kiss, so hon- 
est and sincere that it might have been heard above 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


27 


the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the ma- 
levolent Mother Shipton were probably too stunned 
to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity, 
and so turned without a word to the hut. The 
fire was replenished, the men lay down before the 
door, and in a few minutes were asleep. 

Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morn- 
ing he awoke benumbed and cold. As he stirred 
the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing 
strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused 
the blood to leave it, — snow ! 

He started to his feet with the intention of 
awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to 
lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been 
lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to 
his brain and a curse to his lips. He ran to the 
spot where the mules had been tethered ; they 
were no longer there. The tracks were already 
rapidly disappearing in the snow. 

The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oak- 
hurst back to the fire with his usual calm. He 
did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slum- 
bered peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, 
freckled face; the virgin Piney slept beside her 
frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended by 
celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his 
blanket over his shoulders, stroked his mustaches 
and waited for the dawn. It came slowly in a 
whirling mist of snow-flakes, that dazzled and con- 


28 ’ THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 

fused tlie eye. What could be seen of the land- 
scape appeared magically changed. He looked over 
the valley, and summed up the present and future 
in two words, — “ snowed in ! ” 

A careful inventory of the provisions, which, 
fortunately for the party, had been stored within 
the hut, and so escaped the felonious fingers of 
Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and 
prudence they might last ten days longer. “ That 
is,” said Mr. Oakhurst, sotto voce to the Innocent, 
“ if you ’re willing to board us. If you ain’t — and 
perhaps you ’d better not — you can wait till Uncle 
Billy gets back with provisions.” For some occult 
reason, Mr. Oakhurst could not bring himself to 
disclose Uncle Billy’s rascality, and so offered the 
hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp 
and had accidentally stampeded the animals. He 
dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother 
Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their 
associate’s defection. “ They ’ll find out the truth 
about us all when they find out anything,” he 
added, significantly, “ and there ’s no good frighten- 
ing them now.” 

Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store 
at the disposal of Mr. Oakhurst, but seemed to 
enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion. 
“ We ’ll have a good camp for a week, and then 
the snow ’ll melt, and we ’ll all go back together.” 
The cheerful gayety of the young man, and Mr. 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


29 


Oakhurst’s calm infected the others. The Inno- 
cent, with the aid of pine-boughs, extemporized a 
thatch for the roofless cabin, and the Duchess di- 
rected Piney in the rearrangement of the interior 
with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of 
that provincial maiden to their fullest extent. “ I 
reckon now you’re used to fine things at Poker 
Flat,” said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharp- 
ly to conceal something that reddened her cheeks 
through its professional tint, and Mother Shipton 
requested Piney not to “ chatter.” But when Mr. 
Oakhurst returned from a weary search for the 
trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter echoed 
from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and 
his thoughts first naturally reverted to the whis- 
key, which he had prudently cached. “And yet 
it don’t somehow sound like whiskey,” said the 
gambler. It was not until he caught sight of the 
blazing fire through the still-blinding storm and 
the group around it that he settled to the convic- 
tion that it was “ square fun.” 

Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cached his cards 
with the whiskey as something debarred the free 
access of the community, I cannot say. It was 
certain that, in Mother Shipton’s words, he “ did n’t 
say cards once ” during that evening. Haply the 
time was beguiled by an accordion, produced some- 
what ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack. 
Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the 


30 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods 
managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from 
its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent 
on a pair of bone castinets. But the crowning 
festivity of the evening was reached in a rude 
camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining 
hands, sang with great earnestness and vocifera- 
tion. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Cove- 
nanter’s swing to its chorus, rather than any de- 
votional quality, caused it speedily to infect the 
others, who at last joined in the refrain : — 

“ I ’m proud to live in the service of the Lord, 

And I ’m bound to die in His army.” 

The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled 
above the miserable group, and the flames of their 
altar leaped heavenward, as if in token of the 
frow. 

At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds 
parted, and the stars glittered keenly above the 
Sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose professional 
habits had enabled him to live on the smallest 
possible amount of sleep, in dividing the watch 
with Tom Simson, somehow managed to take upon 
himself the greater part of that duty. He excused 
himself to the Innocent, by saying that he had 
“often been a week without sleep.” “Doing 
what ? ” asked Tom. “ Poker ! ” replied Oakhurst, 
sententiously ; “ when a man gets a streak of luck. 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


31 


-—nigger-luck, — he don’t get tired. The luck 
gives in first. Luck,” continued the gambler, re- 
flectively, “ is a mighty queer thing. All you know 
about it for certain is that it ’s hound to change. 
And it’s finding out when it’s going to change 
that makes you. We ’ve had a streak of bad luck 
since we left Poker Flat, — you come along, and 
slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your 
cards right along you ’re all right. For,” added 
the gambler, with cheerful irrelevance, — 

“‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord, 

And I ’m bound to die in His army.’ ” 

The third day came, and the sun, looking through 
the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide 
their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the 
morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of 
that mountain climate that its rays diffused a 
kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in 
regretful commiseration of the past. But it re- 
vealed drift on drift of snow piled high around 
the hut, — a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of 
white lying below the rocky shores to which the 
castaways still clung. Through the marvellously 
clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Po- 
ker Flat rose miles away. Mother Shipton saw it, 
and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness, 
hurled in that direction a final malediction. It 
was her last vituperative attempt, and perhaps for 


32 


THE OUTCASTS OF FOKER FLAT. 


that reason was invested with a certain degree of 
sublimity. It did her good, she privately informed 
the Duchess. “Just you go out there and cuss, 
and see.” She then set herself to the task of 
amusing “the child,” as she and the Duchess were 
pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but 
it was a soothing and original theory of the pair 
thus to account for the fact that she did n’t swear 
and was n’t improper. 

When night crept up again through the gorges, 
the reedy notes of the accordion rose and fell in 
fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flicker- 
ing camp-fire. But music failed to fill entirely the 
aching void left by insufficient food, and a new 
diversion was proposed by Piney, — story-telling. 
Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions 
caring to relate their personal experiences, this 
plan would have failed, too, but for the Innocent. 
Some months before he had chanced upon a stray 
copy of Mr. Pope’s ingenious translation of the 
Iliad. He now proposed to narrate the principal 
incidents of that poem — having thoroughly mas- 
tered the argument and fairly forgotten the words 
— in the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And 
so for the rest of that night the Homeric demigods 
again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily 
Greek wrestled in the winds, and the great pines 
in the canon seemed to bow to the wrath of the 
son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, 


33 


satisfaction. Most especially was lie interested in 
the fate of “ Ash-heels/’ as the Innocent persisted 
in denominating the “ swift-footed Achilles.” 

So with small food and much of Homer and the 
accordion, a week passed over the heads of the 
outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again 
from leaden skies the snow-flakes were sifted over 
the land. Day by day closer around them drew 
the snowy circle, until at last they looked from 
their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white, 
that towered twenty feet above their heads. It 
became more and more difficult to replenish their 
fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now 
half hidden in the drifts. And yet no one com- 
plained. The lovers turned from the dreary pros- 
pect and looked into each other’s eyes, and were 
happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to 
the losing game before him. The Duchess, more 
cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of 
Piney. Only Mother Shipton — once the strong- 
est of the party — seemed to sicken and fade. At 
midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to 
her side. “ I ’m going,” she said, in a voice of 
querulous weakness, “ but don’t say anything about 
it. Don’t waken the kids. Take the bundle from 
under my head and open it.” Mr. Oakhurst did 
so. It contained Mother Shipton’s rations for the 
last week, untouched. “Give ’em to the child,” 
she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney. “ You ’ve 

2 * O 


34 THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 

starved yourself,” said the gambler. “ That ’s what 
they call it,” said the woman, querulously, as she 
lay down again, and, turning her face to the wall, 
passed quietly away. 

The accordion and the bones were put aside that 
day, and Homer was forgotten. When the body 
of Mother Shipton had been committed to the 
snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and 
showed him a pair of snow-shoes, which he had 
fashioned from the old pack-saddle. “ There ’s 
one chance in a hundred to save her yet,” he said, 
pointing to Piney ; “ but it ’s there,” he added, 
pointing toward Poker Plat. “ If you can reach 
there in two days she ’s safe.” “ And you ? ” asked 
Tom Simson. “ I ’ll stay here,” was the curt reply. 

The lovers parted with a long embrace. “ You 
are not going, too ? ” said the Duchess, as she saw 
Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to accompany 
him. “As far as the canon,” he replied. He 
turned suddenly, and kissed the Duchess, leaving 
her pallid face aflame, and her trembling limbs 
rigid with amazement. 

Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought 
the storm again and the whirling snow. Then the 
Duchess, feeding the fire, found that some one had 
quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a 
few days longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but 
she hid them from Piney. 

The women slept but little. In the morning, 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


35 


looking into each other’s faces, they read their fate. 
Neither spoke ; hut Piney, accepting the position 
of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm 
around the Duchess’s waist. They kept this atti- 
tude for the rest of the day. That night the storm 
reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the 
protecting pines, invaded the very hut. 

Toward morning they found themselves unable 
to feed the fire, which gradually died away. As 
the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept 
closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many 
hours : “ Piney, can you pray ? ” “ No, dear,” said 

Piney, simply. The Duchess, without knowing 
exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head 
*upon Piney’s shoulder, spoke no more. And so 
reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the 
head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, 
they fell asleep. 

The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. 
Feathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long pine- 
bouglis, flew like white-winged birds, and settled 
about them as they slept. The moon through the 
rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the 
camp. But all human stain, all trace of earthly 
travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle 
mercifully flung from above. 

They slept all that day and the next, nor did 
they waken when voices and footsteps broke the 
silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers 


36 


THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. 


brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could 
scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt 
upon them, which was she that had sinned. Even 
the law of Poker Elat recognized this, and turned 
away, leaving them still locked in each other’s 
arms. 

But at the head of the gulch, on one of the 
largest pine-trees, they found the deuce of clubs 
pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife. It bore 
the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand : — ■ 

t 

BENEATH THIS TREE 
LIES THE BODY 

OP 

JOHN OAKHURST, 

WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK 
ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850, 

AND 

* HANDED IN HIS CHECKS 

ON THE 7.TH DECEMBER, 1850. 

+ 

And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his 
side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as 
in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at once 
the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts 
of Poker Elat. 


MIGGLES. 


W E were eight, including the driver. We 
had not spoken during the passage of the 
last six miles, since the jolting of the heavy vehi- 
cle over the roughening road had spoiled the 
Judge’s last poetical quotation. The tall man be- 
side the Judge was asleep, his arm passed through 
the swaying strap and his head resting upon it, — 
altogether a limp, helpless-looking object, as if he 
had hanged himself and been cut down too late. 
The French lady on the hack seat was asleep, too, 
yet in a half-conscious propriety of attitude, shown 
even in the disposition of the handkerchief which 
she held to her forehead and which partially veiled 
her face. The lady from Virginia City, travelling 
with her husband, had long since lost all indi- 
viduality in a wild confusion of ribbons, veils, 
furs, and shawls. There was no sound but the 
• rattling of wheels and the dash of rain upon the 
roof. Suddenly the stage stopped and we became 
dimly aware of voices. The driver was evidently 
in the midst of an exciting colloquy with some 
one in the road, — a colloquy of which such frag- 
ments as “ bridge gone,” “ twenty feet of water,” 


38 


MIGGLES. 


“can’t pass,” were occasionally distinguishable 
above the storm. Then came a lull, and a myste- 
rious voice from the road shouted the parting ad- 
juration, — 

“ Try Miggles’s.” 

We caught a glimpse of our leaders as the vehi- 
cle slowly turned, of a horseman vanishing through 
the rain, and we were evidently on our way to 
Miggles’s. 

Who and where was Miggles ? The Judge, our 
authority, did not remember the name, and he 
knew the country thoroughly. The Washoe trav- 
eller thought Miggles must keep a hotel. We 
only knew that we were stopped by high water in 
front and rear, and that Miggles was our rock' of 
refuge. A ten minutes’ splashing through a tan- 
gled by-road, scarcely wide enough for the stage, 
and we drew up before a barred and boarded gate 
in a w T ide stone wall or fence about eight feet 
high. Evidently Miggles’s, and evidently Miggles 
did not keep a hotel. 

The driver got down and tried the gate. It was 
securely locked. 

“ Miggles ! 0 Miggles ! ” 

No answer. 

“Migg-ells! You Miggles!’ 1 continued the 
driver, with rising wrath. 

“Migglesy !” joined in the expressman, persua- 
sively. “ 0 Miggy ! Mig ! ” 


MIGGLES. 


39 


But no reply came from the apparently insen- 
sate Miggles. The Judge, who had finally got the 
window down, put his head out and propounded a 
series of questions, which if answered categorically 
would have undoubtedly elucidated the whole 
mystery, but which the driver evaded by replying 
that "if we didn’t want to sit in the coach all 
night, we had better rise up and sing out for 
Miggles.” 

So we rose up and called on Miggles in chorus ; 
then separately. And when we had finished, a 
Hibernian fellow-passenger from the roof called 
for “ Maygells ! ” whereat we all laughed. While 
we were laughing, the driver cried " Shoo ! ” 

We listened. To our infinite amazement the 
chorus of " Miggles ” was repeated from the other 
side of the wall, even to the final and supplemen- 
tal " Maygells.” 

" Extraordinary echo,” said the J udge. 

" Extraordinary d — d skunk ! ” roared the driver, 
contemptuously. " Come out of that, Miggles, 
and show yourself ! Be a man, Miggles ! Don’t 
hide in the dark; I would n’t if I were you, 
Miggles,” continued Yuba Bill, now dancing about 
in an excess of fury. 

“ Miggles ! ” continued the voice, " 0 Miggles ! ” 

“ My good man ! Mr. Myghail ! ” said the Judge, 
softening the asperities of the name as much as 
possible. " Consider the inhospitality of refusing 


40 


MIGGLES. 


shelter from the inclemency of the weather to 
helpless females. Really, my dear sir — ” But 
a succession of “Miggles” ending in a burst of 
laughter, drowned his voice. 

Yuba Bill hesitated no longer. Taking a heavy 
stone from the road, he battered down the gate, 
and with the expressman entered the enclosure. 
We followed. Nobody was to be seen. In the 
gathering darkness all that we could distinguish 
was that we were in a garden — from the rose- 
bushes that scattered over us a minute spray from 
their dripping leaves — and before a long, ram- 
bling wooden building. 

“ Do you know this Miggles ? ” asked the Judge 
of Yuba Bill. 

“ No, nor don’t want to,” said Bill, shortly, who 
felt the Pioneer Stage Company insulted in his 
person by the contumacious Miggles. 

“ But, my dear sir,” expostulated the Judge, as 
he thought of the barred gate. 

" Lookee here,” said Yuba Bill, with fine irony, 
“ had n’t you better go back and sit in the coach 
till yer introduced ? I ’m going in,” and he 
pushed open the door of the building. 

A long room lighted only by the embers of a 
fire that was dying on the large hearth at its fur- 
ther extremity ; the walls curiously papered, and 
the flickering firelight bringing out its grotesque 
pattern; somebody sitting in a large arm-chair 


MIGGLES. 


41 


by the fireplace. All this we saw as we crowded 
together into the room, after the driver and ex- 
pressman. 

“ Hello, be you Miggles ? ” said Yuba Bill to 
the solitary occupant. 

The figure neither spoke nor stirred. Yuba 
Bill walked wrathfully toward it, and turned the 
eye of his coach-lantern upon its face. It was a 
man’s face, prematurely old and wrinkled, with 
very large eyes, in which there was that expres- 
sion of perfectly gratuitous solemnity which I had 
sometimes seen in an owl’s. The large eyes wan- 
dered from Bill’s face to the lantern, and finally 
fixed their gaze on that luminous object, without 
further recognition. 

Bill restrained himself with an effort. 

“ Miggles ! Be you deaf ? You ain’t dumb 
anyhow, you know ” ; and Yuba Bill shook the 
insensate figure by the shoulder. 

To our great dismay, as Bill removed his hand, 
the venerable stranger apparently collapsed, — 
sinking into half his size and an undistinguish- 
able heap of clothing. 

"Well, dern my skin,” said Bill, looking ap- 
pealingly at us, and hopelessly retiring from the 
contest. 

The Judge now stepped forward, and we lifted 
the mysterious invertebrate back into his original 
position. Bill was dismissed with the lantern to 


42 


MIGGLES. 


reconnoitre outside, for it was evident that from 
the helplessness of this solitary man there must be 
attendants near at hand, and we all drew around 
the fire. The Judge, who had regained his au- 
thority, and had never lost his conversational 
amiability, — standing before us with his back to 
the hearth, — charged us, as an imaginary jury, 
as follows : — 

“It is evident that either our distinguished 
friend here has reached that condition described 
by Shakespeare as ‘the sere and yellow leaf/ or 
has suffered some premature abatement of his 
mental and physical faculties. Whether he is 
really the Miggles — ” 

Here he was interrupted by “ Miggles ! 0 Mig- 
gles ! Migglesy ! Mig ! ” and, in fact, the whole 
chorus of Miggles in very much the same key as 
it had once before been delivered unto us. 

We gazed at each other for a moment in some 
alarm. The Judge, in particular, vacated his po- 
sition quickly, as the voice sepmed to come di- 
rectly over his shoulder. The cause, however, was 
soon discovered in a large magpie who was 
perched upon a shelf over the fireplace, and who 
immediately relapsed into a sepulchral silence, 
which contrasted singularly with his previous 
volubility. It was, undoubtedly, his voice which 
we had heard in the road, and our friend in the 
chair was not responsible for the discourtesy. 


HIGGLES. 


43 


Yuba Bill, who re-entered the room after an un- 
successful search, was loath to accept the explana- 
tion, and still eyed the helpless sitter with suspi- 
cion. He had found a shed in which he had put 
up his horses, but he came back dripping and 
sceptical. “ Thar ain’t nobody but him within 
ten mile of the shanty, and that ’ar d — d old 
skeesicks knows it.” 

But the faith of the majority proved to be se- 
curely based. Bill had scarcely ceased growling 
before we heard a quick step upon the porch, 
the trailing of a wet skirt, the door was flung 
open, and with a flash of white teeth, a sparkle 
of dark eyes, and an utter absence of ceremony 
or diffidence, a young woman entered, shut the 
door, and, panting, leaned back against it* 

“ 0, if you please, I ’m Higgles ! ” 

And this was Miggles ! this bright-eyed, full- 
throated young woman, whose wet gown of coarse 
blue stuff could not hide the beauty of the femi- 
nine curves to which it clung ; from the chestnut 
crown of whose head, topped by a man’s oil-skin 
sou’wester, to the little feet and ankles, hid- 
den somewhere in the recesses of her boy’s bro- 
gans, all was grace ; — this was Miggles, laughing 
at us, too, in the most airy, frank, off-hand man- 
ner imaginable. 

“ You see, boys,” said she, quite out of breath, 
and holding one little hand against her side, quite 


44 


HIGGLES. 


unheeding the speechless discomfiture of our par- 
ty, or the complete demoralization of Yuba Bill, 
whose features had relaxed into an expression of 
gratuitous and imbecile cheerfulness, — “ you see, 
hoys, I was mor’n two miles away when you 
passed down the road. I thought you might pull 
up here, and so I ran the whole way, knowing 
nobody was home hut Jim, — and — and — I ’m 
out of breath — and — that lets me out.” 

And here Miggles caught her dripping oil-skin 
hat from her head, with a mischievous swirl that 
scattered a shower of rain-drops over us ; at- 
tempted to put back her hair ; dropped two hair- 
pins in the attempt ; laughed and sat down beside 
Yuba Bill, with her hands crossed lightly on her 
lap. -* 

The Judge recovered himself first, and es’sayed 
an extravagant compliment. 

“ 1 11 trouble you for that thar har-pin,” said 
Miggles, gravely. Half a dozen hands were eagerly 
stretched forward; the missing hair-pin was re- 
stored to its fair owner ; and Miggles, crossing the 
room, looked keenly in the face of the invalid. 
The solemn eyes looked back at hers with an ex- 
pression we had never seen before. Life and in- 
telligence seemed to struggle back into the rugged 
face. Miggles laughed again, — it was a singularly 
eloquent laugh, — and turned her black eyes and 
white teeth once more toward us. 


HIGGLES. 


45 


“This afflicted person is — ” hesitated the 
Judge. 

“ Jim/’ said Miggles. 

“ Your father ? ” 

“No.” 

“ Brother ? ” 

“No.” 

“ Husband?” 

Miggles darted a quick, half-defiant glance at 
the two lady passengers who I had noticed did 
not participate in the general masculine admira- 
tion of Miggles, and said, gravely, “ No ; it ’s 
Jim.” 

There was an awkward pause. The lady pas- 
sengers moved closer to each other ; the Washoe 
husband looked abstractedly at the fire'; and the 
tall man apparently turned his eyes inward for 
self-support at this emergency. But Miggles’s 
laugh, which was very infectious, broke the silence. 
“ Come,” she said briskly, “ you must be hungry. 
Who ’ll bear a hand to help me get tea ? ” 

She had no lack of volunteers. In a few mo- 
ments Yuba Bill was engaged like Caliban in 
bearing logs for this Miranda ; the expressman 
was grinding coffee on the veranda ; to myself 
the arduous duty of slicing bacon was assigned ; 
and the Judge lent each man his good-humored 
and voluble counsel. And when Miggles, assisted 
by the Judge and our Hibernian “ deck passen- 


46 


MIGGLES. 


ger,” set the table with all the available crock- 
ery, we had become quite joyous, in spite of the 
rain that beat against windows, the wind that 
whirled down the chimney, the two ladies who 
whispered together in the comer, or the magpie 
who uttered a satirical and croaking commentary 
on their conversation from his perch above. In 
the now bright, blazing fire we could see that 
the walls were papered with illustrated journals, 
arranged with feminine taste and discrimination. 
The furniture was extemporized, and adapted from 
candle-boxes and packing-cases, and covered with 
gay calico, or the skin of s$me animal. The 
arm-chair of the helpless Jim was an ingenious 
variation of a flour-barrel. There was neatness, 
and even a taste for the picturesque, to be seen in 
the few details of the long low room. 

The meal was a culinary success. But more, it 
was a social triumph, — chiefly, I think, owing to 
the rare tact of Miggles in guiding the conversa- 
tion, asking all the questions herself, yet bearing 
throughout a frankness that rejected the idea of 
any concealment on her own part, so that we talked 
of ourselves, of our prospects, of the journey, of 
the weather, of each other, — of everything but 
our host and hostess. It must be confessed that 
Miggles’ s conversation was never elegant, rarely 
grammatical, and that at times she employed exple- 
tives, the use of which had generally been yielded 


MIGGLES. 


47 


to our sex. But they were delivered with such 
a lighting up of teeth and eyes, and were usually 
followed by a laugh — a laugh peculiar to Mig- 
gles — so frank and honest that it seemed to clear 
the moral atmosphere. 

Once, during the meal, we heard a noise like 
the rubbing of a heavy body against the outer 
walls of the house. This was shortly followed by a 
scratching and sniffling at the door. “ That’s Joa- 
quin,” said Miggles, in reply to our questioning 
glances ; “ would you like to see him ? ” Before we 
could answer she had opened the door, and dis- 
closed a half-grow^. grizzly, who instantly raised 
himself on his haunches, with his forepaws hang- 
ing down in the popular attitude of mendicancy, 
and looked admiringly at Miggles, with a very 
singular resemblance in his manner to Yuba Bill. 
“ That ’s my watch-dog,” said Miggles, in explana- 
tion. “ 0, he don’t bite,” she added, as the two 
lady passengers fluttered into a corner. “ Does he, 
old Toppy ? ” (the latter remark being addressed 
directly to the sagacious Joaquin.) “I tell you. 
what, boys,” continued Miggles, after she had fee* 
and closed the door on Ursa Minor , “ you were in 
big luck that J oaquin was n’t hanging round when 
you dropped in to-night.” “ Where was he ? ” 
asked the Judge. "With me,” said Miggles. 
“ Lord love you ; he trots round with me nights 
like as if he was a man.” 


48 


MIGGLES. 


We were silent for a few moments, and lis- 
tened to the wind. Perhaps we all had the same 
picture before us, — of Miggles walking through 
the rainy woods, with her savage guardian at her 
side. The Judge, I remember, said something 
about Una and her lion ; but Miggles received it 
as she did other compliments, with quiet gravity. 
Whether she was altogether unconscious of the 
admiration she excited, — she could hardly have 
been oblivious of Yuba Bill’s adoration, — I know 
not ; but her very frankness suggested a perfect 
sexual equality that was cruelly humiliating to 
the younger members of our party. 

The incident of the bear did not add anything 
in Miggles’s favor to the opinions of those of her 
own sex who were present. In fact, the repast 
over, a chillness radiated from the two lady pas- 
sengers that no pine-boughs brought in by Yuba 
Bill and cast as a sacrifice upon the hearth could 
wholly overcome. Miggles felt it ; and, suddenly 
declaring that it was time to “ turn in,” offered to 
show the ladies to their bed in an adjoining room. 
“ You, boys, will have to camp out here by the 
fire as well as you can,” she added, “ for thar ain’t 
but the one room.” 

Our sex — by which, my dear sir, I allude of 
course to the stronger portion of humanity — has 
been generally relieved from the imputation of cu- 
riosity, or a fondness for gossip. Yet I am con- 


HIGGLES. 


49 


strained to say, that hardly had the door closed on 
Miggles than we crowded together, whispering, 
snickering, smiling, and exchanging suspicions, 
surmises, and a thousand speculations in regard to 
our pretty hostess and her singular companion. I 
fear that we even hustled that imbecile paralytic, 
who sat like a voiceless Memnon in our midst, 
gazing with the serene indifference of the Past in 
his passionless eyes upon our wordy counsels. In 
the midst of an exciting discussion the door opened 
again, and Miggles re-entered. 

But not, apparently, the same Miggles who a 
few hours before had flashed upon us. Her eyes 
were downcast, and as she hesitated for a moment 
on the threshold, with a blanket on her arm, she 
seemed to have left behind her the frank fearless- 
ness which had charmed us a moment before. 
Coming into the room, she drew a low stool beside 
the paralytic’s chair, sat down, drew the blanket 
over her shoulders, and saying, “ If it ’s all the same 
to you, boys, as we ’re rather crowded, I ’ll stop 
here to-night,” took the invalid’s withered hand in 
her own, and turned her eyes upon the dying fire. 
An instinctive feeling that this was only premoni- 
tory to more confidential relations, and perhaps 
some shame at our previous curiosity, kept us si- 
lent. The rain still beat upon the roof, wander- 
ing gusts of wind stirred the embers into momen- 
tary brightness, until, in a lull of the elements, 

3 D 


50 


MIGGLES. 


Miggles suddenly lifted up her head, and, throw- 
ing her hair over her shoulder, turned her face 
upon the group and asked, — 

“ Is there any of you that knows me ? ” 

There was no reply. 

“ Think again ! I lived at Marysville in ’53. 
Everybody knew me there, and everybody had the 
right to know me. I kept the Polka Saloon until 
I came to live with Jim. That ’s six years ago. 
Perhaps I’ve changed some.” 

The absence of recognition may have discon- 
certed her. She turned her head to the fire again, 
and it was some seconds before she again spoke, 
and then more rapidly : — 

“Well, you see I thought some of you must 
have known me. There’s no great harm done, 
anyway. What I was going to say was this : Jim 
here ” — she took his hand in both of hers as she 
spoke — “used to know me, if you didn’t, and 
spent a heap of money upon me. I reckon he 
spent all he had. And one day — it ’s six years 
ago this winter — Jim came into my hack room, 
sat down on my sofy, like as you see him in that 
chair, and never moved again without help. He 
was struck all of a heap, and never seemed to 
know what ailed him. The doctors came and said 
as how it was caused all along of his way of life, 
— for Jim was mighty free and wild like, — and 
that he would never get better, and could n’t last 


MIGGLES. 


51 


long anyway. They advised me- to send him to 
Frisco to the hospital, for he was no good to any 
one and would be a baby all his life. Perhaps it 
was something in Jim’s eye, perhaps it was that I 
never had a baby, but I said ‘No.’ I was rich 
then, for I was popular with everybody, — gentle- 
men like yourself, sir, came to see me, — and I 
sold out my business and bought this yer place, 
because it was sort of out of the way of travel, you 
see, and I brought my baby here.” 

With a woman’s intuitive tact and poetry, she 
had, as she spoke, slowly shifted her position so as 
to bring the mute figure of the ruined man be- 
tween her and her audience, hiding in the shadow 
behind it, as if she offered it as a tacit apology 
for her actions. Silent and expressionless, it yet 
spoke for her ; helpless, crushed, and smitten with 
the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched an in- 
visible arm around her. 

Hidden in the darkness, but still holding his 
hand, she went on : — 

“ It was a long time before I could get the hang 
of things about yer, for I was used to company 
and excitement. I could n’t get any woman to 
help me, and a man I dursent trust ; but what 
with the Indians hereabout, who ’d do odd jobs for 
me, and having everything sent from the North 
Fork, Jim and I managed to worry through. The 
Doctor would run up from Sacramento once in a 


52 


MIGGLES. 


while. He ’d ask to see ' Miggles’s baby/ as be 
called Jim, and when he ’d go away, he ’d say, 
'■ Miggles ; yon ’re a trump, — God bless you ’ ; and 
it did n’t seem so lonely after that. But the last 
time he was here he said, as he opened the door to 
go, ‘ Do you know, Miggles, your baby will grow 
up to be a man yet and an honor to his mother ; 
but not here, Miggles, not here ! ’ And I thought 
he went away sad, — and — and — ” and here Mig- 
gles’s voice and head were somehow both lost com- 
pletely in the shadow. 

“ The folks about here are very kind,” said Mig- 
gles, after a pause, coming a little into the light 
again. “ The men from the fork used to hang 
around here, until they found they was n’t wanted, 
and the women are kind, — and don’t call. I was 
pretty lonely until I picked up Joaquin in the 
woods yonder one day, when he was n’t so high, 
and taught him to beg for his dinner ; and then 
thar ’s Polly — that ’s the magpie — she knows no 
end of tricks, and makes it quite sociable of even- 
ings with her talk, and so I don’t feel like as I 
was the only living being about the ranch. And 
Jim here,” said Miggles, with her old laugh again, 
and coming out quite into the firelight, “ Jim — 
why, boys, you would admire to see how much he 
knows for a man like him. Sometimes I bring 
him flowers, and he looks at ’em just as natural as 
if he knew ’em ; and times, when we ’re sitting 


MIGGLES. 


53 


alone, I read him those things on the wall. Why, 
Lord ! ” said Miggles, with her frank laugh, “ I ’ve 
read him that whole side of the house this winter. 
There never was such a man for reading as Jim.” 

“Why,” asked the Judge, “do you not marry 
this man to whom you have devoted your youth- 
ful life ? ” 

“Well, you see,” said Miggles, “it would be 
playing it rather low down on Jim, to take advan- 
tage of his being so helpless. And then, too, if 
we were man and wife, now, we ’d both know that 
I was bound to do what I do now of my own 
accord” 

“ But you are young yet and attractive — ” 

“ It ’s getting late,” said Miggles, gravely, “ and 
you ’d better all turn in. Good-night, hoys ” ; and, 
throwing the blanket over her head, Miggles laid 
herself down beside Jim’s chair, her head pillowed 
on the low stool that held his feet, and spoke no 
more. The fire slowly faded from the hearth ; we 
each sought our blankets in silence ; and presently 
there was no sound in the long room but the pat- 
tering of the rain upon the roof, and the heavy 
breathing of the sleepers. 

It was nearly morning when I awoke from a 
troubled dream. The storm had passed, the stars 
were shining, and through the shutterless window 
the full moon, lifting itself over the solemn pines 
without, looked into the room. It touched the 


54 


MIGGLES. 


lonely figure in the chair with an infinite compas- 
sion, and seemed to baptize with a shining flood 
the lowly head of the woman whose hair, as in 
the sweet old story, bathed the feet of him she 
loved. It even lent a kindly poetry to the rugged 
outline of Yuba Bill, half reclining on his elbow 
between them and his passengers, with savagely 
patient eyes keeping watch and ward. And then 
I fell asleep and only woke at broad day, with 
Yuba Bill standing over me, and “All aboard” 
ringing in my ears. 

Coffee was waiting for us on the table, but Mig- 
gles was gone. We wandered about the house and 
lingered long after the horses were harnessed, but 
she did not return. It was evident that she wished 
to avoid a formal leave-taking, and had so left 
us to depart as we had come. After we had helped 
the ladies into the coach, we returned to the house 
and solemnly shook hands with the paralytic Jim, 
as solemnly settling him back into position after 
each hand-shake. Then we looked for the last 
time around the long low room, at the stool where 
Higgles had sat, and slowly took our seats in the 
waiting coach. The whip cracked, and we were 
off! 

But as we reached the high-road, Bill’s dexterous 
hand laid the six horses back on their haunches, 
and the stage stopped with a jerk. For there, on 
a little eminence beside the road, stood Higgles* 


HIGGLES. 


55 


her hair flying, her eyes sparkling, her white hand- 
kerchief waving, and her white teeth flashing a 
last “ good-by” We waved our hats in return. 
And then Yuba Bill, as if fearful of further fasci- 
nation, madly lashed his horses forward, and we 
sank back in our seats. We exchanged not a word 
until we reached the North Fork, and the stage 
drew up at the Independence House. Then, the 
Judge leading, we walked into the bar-room and 
took our places gravely at the bar. 

“ Are your glasses charged, gentlemen ? ” said 
the Judge, solemnly taking off his white hat. 

They were. 

“ Well, then, here ’s to Miggles , God bless 
her ! ” 

Perhaps He had. Who knows ? 


TENNESSEE’S PAKTNEK. 


I DO not think that we ever knew his real 
name. Our ignorance of it certainly never 
gave us any social inconvenience, for at Sandy Bar 
in 1854 most men were christened anew. Some- 
times these appellatives were derived from some 
distinctiveness of dress, as in the case of “ Dunga- 
ree Jack”; or from some peculiarity of habit, as 
shown in “ Saleratus Bill,” so called from an undue 
proportion of that chemical in his daily bread ; or 
from some unlucky slip, as exhibited in “The Iron 
Pirate,” a mild, inoffensive man, who earned that 
baleful title by his unfortunate mispronunciation 
of the term “ iron pyrites.” Perhaps this may 
have been the beginning of a rude heraldry ; but 
I am constrained to think that it was because a 
man’s real name in that day rested solely upon 
his own unsupported statement. “Call yourself 
Clifford, do you ? ” said Boston, addressing a timid 
new-comer with infinite scorn ; “ hell is full of 
such Cliffords ! ” He then introduced the unfortu- 
nate man, whose name happened to be really Clif- 
ford, as “Jay-bird Charley,” — an unhallowed inspi- 
ration of the moment; that clung to him ever after. 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


57 


But to return to Tennessee’s Partner, whom we 
never knew by any other than this relative title ; 
that he had ever existed as a separate and distinct 
individuality we only learned later. It seems that 
in 1853 he left Poker Plat to go to San Francisco, 
ostensibly to procure a wife. He never got any 
farther than Stockton. At that place he was at- 
tracted by a young person who waited upon the 
table at the hotel where he took his meals. One 
morning he said something to her which caused her 
to smile not unkindly, to somewhat coquettishly 
break a plate of toast over his upturned, serious, 
simple face, and to retreat to the kitchen. He fol- 
lowed her, and emerged a few moments later, cov- 
ered with more toast and victory. That day week 
they w T ere married by a Justice of the Peace, and 
returned to Poker Flat. I am aware that something 
more might be made of this episode, but I prefer 
to tell it as it was current at Sandy Bar, — in the 
gulches and bar-rooms, — where all sentiment was 
modified by a strong sense of humor. 

Of their married felicity but little is known, 
perhaps for the reason that Tennessee, then living 
with his partner, one day took occasion to say 
something to the bride on his own account, at 
which, it is said, she smiled not unkindly and 
chastely retreated, — this time as far as Marysville, 
where Tennessee followed her, and where they 
went to housekeeping without the aid of a Justice 

3 * 


58 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


of the Peace. Tennessee’s Partner took the loss of 
his wife simply and seriously, as was his fashion. 
But to everybody’s surprise, when Tennessee one 
day returned from Marysville, without his partner’s 
wife, — she having smiled and retreated with some- 
body else, — Tennessee’s Partner was the first man 
to shake his hand and greet him with affection. 
The boys who had gathered in the canon to see 
the shooting were naturally indignant. Their in- 
dignation might have found vent in sarcasm but 
for a certain look in Tennessee’s Partner’s eye that 
indicated a lack of humorous appreciation. In 
fact, he was a grave man, with a steady applica- 
tion to practical detail which was unpleasant in a 
difficulty. 

Meanwhile a popular feeling against Tennessee 
had grown up on the Bar. He was known to be a 
gambler; he was suspected to be a thief. In 
these suspicions Tennessee’s Partner was equally 
compromised; his continued intimacy with Ten- 
nessee after the affair above quoted could only be 
accounted for on the hypothesis of a copartnership 
of crime. At last Tennessee’s guilt became fla- 
grant. One day he overtook a stranger on his way 
to Bed Dog. The stranger afterward related that 
Tennessee beguiled the time with interesting anec- 
dote and reminiscence, but illogically concluded 
the interview in the following words : “ And now, 
young man, I ’ll trouble you for your knife, your 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


59 


pistols, and your money. Yon see yonr weppings 
might get you into trouble at Eed Dog, and your 
money ’s a temptation to the evilly disposed. I 
think you said your address was San Francisco. I 
shall endeavor to call.” It may be stated here 
that Tennessee had a fine flow of humor, which 
no business preoccupation could wholly subdue. 

This exploit was his last. Eed Dog and Sandy 
Bar made common cause against the highwayman. 
Tennessee was hunted in very much the same fash- 
ion as his prototype, the grizzly. As the toils closed 
around him, he made a desperate dash through the 
Bar, emptying his revolver at the crowd before the 
Arcade Saloon, and so on up Grizzly Canon ; but 
at its farther extremity he was stopped by a small 
man on a gray horse. The men looked at each 
other a moment in silence. Both were fearless, 
both self-possessed and independent; and both 
types of a civilization that in the seventeenth 
century would have been called heroic, but, in the 
nineteenth, simply “ reckless.” “ What have you 
got there ? — I call,” said Tennessee, quietly. “ Two 
bowers and an ace,” said the stranger, as quietly, 
showing two revolvers and a bowie-knife. “ That 
takes me,” returned Tennessee ; and with this 
gamblers’ epigram, he threw away his useless pis- 
tol, and rode back with his captor. 

It was a warm night. The cool breeze which 


60 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


usually sprang up with the going down of the sun 
behind the chaparral - crested mountain was that 
evening withheld from Sandy Bar. The little 
canon was stifling with heated resinous odors, and 
the decaying drift-wood on the Bar sent forth faint, 
sickening exhalations. The feverishness of day, 
and its fierce passions, still filled the camp. Lights 
moved restlessly along the bank of the river, strik- 
ing no answering reflection from its tawny current. 
Against the blackness of the pines the windows 
of the old loft above the express-office stood out 
staringly bright; and through their curtainless 
panes the loungers below could see the forms of 
those who were even then deciding the fate of 
Tennessee. And above all this, etched on the 
dark firmament, rose the Sierra, remote and pas- 
sionless, crowned with remoter passionless stars. 

The trial of Tennessee was conducted as fairly 
as was consistent with a judge and jury who felt 
themselves to some extent obliged to justify, in 
their verdict, the previous irregularities of arrest 
and indictment. The law of Sandy Bar was im- 
placable, but not vengeful. The excitement and 
personal feeling of the chase were over ; with Ten- 
nessee safe in their hands they were ready to listen 
patiently to any defence, which they were already 
satisfied was insufficient. There being no doubt 
in their own minds, they were willing to give the 
prisoner the benefit of any that might exist. So- 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


61 


cure in the hypothesis that he ought to he hanged, 
on general principles, they indulged him with more 
latitude of defence than his reckless hardihood 
seemed to ask. The Judge appeared to he more 
anxious than the prisoner, who, otherwise uncon- 
cerned, evidently took a grim pleasure in the re- 
sponsibility he had created. “ I don’t take any 
hand in this yer game,” had been his invariable, 
but good-humored reply to all questions. The 
Judge — who was also his captor — for a moment 
vaguely regretted that he had not shot him “ on 
sight,” that morning, but presently dismissed this 
human weakness as unworthy of the judicial mind. 
[Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, 
and it was said that Tennessee’s Partner was 
there on behalf of the prisoner, he was admitted at 
once without question. Perhaps the younger mem- 
bers of the jury, to whom the proceedings were 
becoming irksomely thoughtful, hailed him as a 
relief. 

For he was not, certainly, an imposing figure. 
Short and stout, with a square face, sunburned 
into a preternatural redness, clad in a loose duck 
“ jumper,” and trousers streaked and splashed 
with red soil, his aspect under any circumstances 
would have been quaint, and was now even ridicu- 
lous. As he stooped to deposit at his feet a heavy 
carpet-bag he was carrying, it became obvious, 
from partially developed legends and inscriptions. 


62 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


that the material with which his trousers had been 
patched had been originally intended for a les^ 
ambitious covering. Yet he advanced with great 
gravity, and after having shaken the hand of each 
person in the room with labored cordiality, he 
wiped his serious, perplexed face on a red bandanna 
handkerchief, a shade lighter than his complexion, 
laid his powerful hand upon the table to steady 
himself, and thus addressed the Judge : — 

“ I was passin’ by,” he began, by way of apology, 
and I thought I ’d just step in and see how things 
was gittin’ on with Tennessee thar, — my pardner. 
It ’s a hot night. I disremember any sich weather 
before on the Bar.” 

He paused a moment, but nobody volunteering 
any other meteorological recollection, he again had 
recourse to his pocket-handkerchief, and for some 
moments mopped his face diligently. 

“ Have you anything to say in behalf of the 
prisoner?” said the Judge, finally. 

“ Thet ’s it,” said Tennessee’s Partner, in a tone 
of relief. “ I come yar as Tennessee’s pardner, — 
knowing him nigh on four year, off and on, wet 
and dry, in luck and out o’ luck. His ways ain’t 
allers my ways, but thar ain’t any p’ints in that 
young man, thar ain’t any liveliness as he ’s been up 
to, as I don’t know. And you sez to me, sez you, — 
confidential-like, and between man and man, — sez 
you, ‘ Do you know anything in his behalf ? ’ and I 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


63 


sez to you, sez I, — confidential-like, as between 
man and man, — ‘ What should a man know of his 
pardner ? ’ ” 

“ Is this all you have to say ? ” asked the Judge, 
impatiently, feeling, perhaps, that a dangerous 
sympathy of humor was beginning to humanize 
the Court. 

“ Thet ’s so,” continued Tennessee’s Partner. 
“ It ain’t for me to say anything agin’ him. And 
now, what ’s the case ? Here ’s Tennessee wants 
money, wants it bad, and does n’t like to ask it of 
his old pardner. Well, what does Tennessee do ? 
He lays for a stranger, and he fetches that stranger. 
And you lays for him , and you fetches him ; and 
the honors is easy. And I put it to you, bein’ a 
far-minded man, and to you, gentlemen, all, as 
far-minded men, ef this is n’t so.” 

“ Prisoner,” said the Judge, interrupting, “ have 
you any questions to ask this man ? ” 

“ Ho ! no ! ” continued Tennessee’s Partner, 
hastily. “ I play this yer hand alone. To come 
down to the bed-rock, it ’s just this : Tennessee, 
thar, has played it pretty rough and expensive- 
like on a stranger, and on this yer camp. And 
now, what ’s the fair thing ? Some would say 
more ; some would say less. Here ’s seventeen 
hundred dollars in coarse gold and a watch, — it ’s 
about all my pile, — and call it square ! ” And 
before a hand could be raised to prevent him, he 


64 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


had emptied the contents of the carpet-bag upon 
the table. 

For a moment his life was in jeopardy. One or 
two men sprang to their feet, several hands groped 
for hidden weapons, and a suggestion to “ throw 
him from the window ” was only overridden by a 
gesture from the Judge. Tennessee laughed. And 
apparently oblivious of the excitement, Tennes- 
see’s Partner improved the opportunity to mop his 
face again with his handkerchief. 

When order was restored, and the man was 
made to understand, by the use of forcible figures 
and rhetoric, that Tennessee’s offence could not be 
condoned by money, his face took a more serious 
and sanguinary hue, and those who were nearest 
to him noticed that his rough hand trembled 
slightly on the table. He hesitated a moment as 
he slowly returned the gold to the carpet-bag, as 
if he had not yet entirely caught the elevated 
sense of justice which swayed the tribunal, and 
was perplexed with the belief that he had not 
offered enough. Then he turned to the Judge, 
and saying, “ This yer is a lone hand, played alone, 
and without my pardner,” he bowed to the jury 
and was about to withdraw, when the J udge called 
him back. “ If you have anything to say to Ten- 
nessee, you had better say it now.” For the first 
time that evening the eyes of the prisoner and his 
strange advocate met. Tennessee smiled, showed 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


65 


his white teeth, and, saying, “ Euchred, old man ! ” 
held out his hand. Tennessee’s Partner took it in 
his own, and saying, " I just dropped in as I was 
passin’ to see how things was gettin’ on,” let the 
hand passively fall, and adding that “ it was a 
warm night,” again mopped his face with his hand- 
kerchief, and without another word withdrew. 

The two men never again met each other alive. 
For the unparalleled insult of a bribe offered to 
Judge Lynch — who, whether bigoted, weak, or 
narrow, was at least incorruptible — firmly fixed 
in the mind of that mythical personage any waver- 
ing determination of Tennessee’s fate ; and at the 
break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to 
meet it at the top of Marley’s Hill. 

How he met it, how cool he was, how he refused 
to say anything, how perfect were the arrange- 
ments of the committee, were all duly reported, 
with the addition of a warning moral and example 
to all future evil-doers, in the Bed Dog Clarion, 
by its editor, who was present, and to whose 
vigorous English I cheerfully refer the reader. 
But the beauty of that midsummer morning, the 
blessed amity of earth and air and sky, the 
awakened life of the free woods and hills, the 
joyous renewal and promise of Nature, and above 
all, the infinite Serenity that thrilled through each, 
was not reported, as not being a part of the social 
lesson. And yet, when the weak and foolish deed 


66 TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 

was done, and a life, with its possibilities and re- 
sponsibilities, had passed out of the misshapen 
'thing that dangled between earth and sky, the 
birds sang, the flowers bloomed, the sun shone, 
as cheerily as before ; and possibly the Eed Dog 
Clarion was right. 

Tennessee’s Partner was not in the group that 
surrounded the ominous tree. But as they turned 
to disperse attention was drawn to the singular 
appearance of a motionless donkey-cart halted at 
the side of the road. As they approached, they at 
once recognized the venerable “ Jenny ” and the 
two-wheeled cart as the property of Tennessee’s 
Partner, — used by him in carrying dirt from his 
claim ; and a few paces distant the owner of the 
equipage himself, sitting under a buckeye-tree, 
wiping the perspiration from his glowing face. In 
answer to an inquiry, he said he had come for 
the body of the “ diseased,” “ if it was all the 
same to the committee.” He did n’t wish to 
“ hurry anything ” ; he could “ wait.” He was not 
working that day ; and when the gentlemen were 
done with the “ diseased,” he would take him. 
“ Ef thar is any present,” he added, in his simple, 
serious way, “ as would care to jine in the fun’l, 
they kin come.” Perhaps it was from a sense of 
humor, which I have already intimated was a 
feature of Sandy Bar, — perhaps it was from some- 
thing even better than that ; but two thirds of 
the loungers accepted the invitation at once. 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


67 


It was noon when the body of Tennessee was 
delivered into the hands of his partner. As the 
cart drew up to the fatal tree, we noticed that it 
contained a rough, oblong box, — apparently made 
from a section of sluicing, — and half filled with 
bark and the tassels of pine. The cart was fur- 
ther decorated with slips of willow, and made 
fragrant with buckeye-blossoms. When the body 
was deposited in the box, Tennessee’s Partner drew 
over it a piece of tarred canvas, and gravely 
mounting the narrow seat in front, with his feet 
upon the shafts, urged the little donkey forward. 
The equipage moved slowly on, at that decorous 
pace which was habitual with “ Jenny ” even un- 
der less solemn circumstances. The men — half 
curiously, half jestingly, but all good-humoredly 
— strolled along beside the cart ; some in advance, 
some a little in the rear of the homely catafalque. 
But, whether from the narrowing of the road or 
some present sense of decorum, as the cart passed 
on, the company fell to the rear in couples, keep- 
ing step, and otherwise assuming the external show 
of a formal procession. Jack Folinsbee, who had 
at the outset played a funeral march in dumb 
show upon an imaginary trombone, desisted, from 
a lack of sympathy and appreciation, — not hav- 
ing, perhaps, your true humorist’s capacity to be 
content with the enjoyment of his own fun. 

The way led through Grizzly Canon, — by this 


68 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


time clothed in funereal drapery and shadows. 
The redwoods, burying their moccasoned feet in 
the red soil, stood in Indian-file along the track, 
trailing an uncouth benediction from their bending 
boughs upon the passing bier. A hare, surprised 
into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating 
in the ferns by the roadside, as the cortege went 
by. Squirrels hastened to gain a secure outlook 
from higher boughs ; and the blue-jays, spreading 
their wings, fluttered before them like outriders, 
until the outskirts of Sandy Bar were reached, 
and the solitary cabin of Tennessee’s Partner. 

Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it 
would not have been a cheerful place. The un- 
picturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines, 
the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest- 
building of the California miner, were all here, 
with the dreariness of decay superadded. A few 
paces from the cabin there was a rough enclosure, 
which, in the brief days of Tennessee’s Partner’s 
matrimonial felicity, had been used as a garden, 
but was now overgrown with fern. As we ap- 
proached it we were surprised to find that what 
we had taken for a recent attempt at cultivation 
was the broken soil about an open grave. 

The cart was halted before the enclosure ; and 
rejecting the offers of assistance with the same air 
of simple self-reliance he had displayed through- 
out, Tennessee’s Partner lifted the rough coffin on 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


69 


liis back, and deposited it, unaided, within the 
shallow grave. He then nailed down the board 
which served as a lid ; and mounting the little 
mound of earth beside it, took off his hat, and 
slowly mopped his face with his handkerchief. 
This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech ; 
and they disposed themselves variously on stumps 
and boulders, and sat expectant. 

“When a man,” began Tennessee’s Partner, 
slowly, “ has been running free all day, what ’s the 
natural thing for him to do ? Why, to come 
home. And if he ain’t in a condition to go home, 
what can his best friend do? Why, bring him 
home ! And here ’s Tennessee has been running 
free, and we brings him home from his wander- 
ing.” He paused, and picked up a fragment of 
quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and 
went on : “ It ain’t the first time that I ’ve packed 
him on my back, as you see’d me now. It ain’t 
the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin 
when he could n’t help himself ; it ain’t the first 
time that I and f Jinny ’ have waited for him on 
yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him 
home, when he could n’t speak, and did n’t know 
me. And now that it ’s the last time, why — ” he 
paused, and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeve 
— “ you see it ’s sort of rough on his pardner. 
And now, gentlemen,” he added, abruptly, picking 
up his long-handled shovel, “ the fun’l ’s over ; 


70 , TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 

and my thanks, and Tennessee’s thanks, to you for 
your trouble.” 

Eesisting any proffers of assistance, he began to 
fill in the grave, turning his back upon the crowd, 
that after a few moments’ hesitation gradually 
withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that 
hid Sandy Bar from view, some, looking back, 
thought they could see Tennessee’s Partner, his 
work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel be- 
tween his knees, and his face buried in his red 
bandanna handkerchief. But it was argued by 
others that you couldn’t tell his face from his 
handkerchief at that distance ; and this point re- 
mained undecided. 

In the reaction that followed the feverish ex- 
citement of that day, Tennessee’s Partner was not 
forgotten. A secret investigation had cleared him 
of any complicity in Tennessee’s guilt, and left 
only a suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar 
made a point of calling on him, and proffering 
various uncouth, but well-meant kindnesses. But 
from that day his rude health and great strength 
seemed visibly to decline; and when the rainy 
season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were 
beginning to peep from the rocky mound above 
Tennessee’s grave, he took to his bed. 

One night, when the pines beside the cabin 
were swaying in the storm, and trailing their 


TENNESSEE’S PARTNER. 


71 


slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and 
rush of the swollen river were heard below, Ten- 
nessee’s Partner lifted his head from the pillow, 
saying, “ It is time to go for Tennessee ; I must 
put ‘ Jinny ’ in the cart ” ; and would have risen 
from his bed hut for the restraint of his attendant. 
Struggling, he still pursued his singular fancy : 
“There, now, steady, 'Jinny,’ — steady, old girl. 
How dark it is ! Look out for the ruts, — and look 
out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, you know, 
when he ’s blind drunk, he drops down right in the 
trail. Keep on straight up to the pine on the top 
of the hill. Thar — I told you so ! — thar he is, 
— coming this way, too, — all by himself, sober, 
and his face a-shining. Tennessee ! Pardner ! ” 
And so they met. 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


ANDY was very drunk. He was lying under 



O an azalea-bush, in pretty much the same atti- 
tude in which he had fallen some hours before. 
How long he had been lying there he could not 
tell, and didn’t care; how long he should lie 
there was a matter equally indefinite and un- 
considered. A tranquil philosophy, born of his 
physical condition, suffused and saturated his 
moral being. 

The spectacle of a drunken man, and of this 
drunken man in particular, was not, I grieve to 
say, of sufficient novelty in Red Gulch to attract 
attention. Earlier in the day some local satirist 
had erected a temporary tombstone at Sandy’s 
head, bearing the inscription, “ Effects of McCor- 
kle’s whiskey, — kills at forty rods,” with a hand 
pointing to McCorkle’s saloon. But this, I im- 
agine, was, like most local satire, personal ; and 
was a reflection upon the unfairness of the process 
rather than a commentary upon the impropriety 
of the result. With this facetious exception, Sandy 
had been undisturbed. A wandering mule, released 
from his pack, had cropped the scant herbage be- 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


73 


side Mm, and sniffed curiously at the prostrate 
man ; a vagabond dog, with that deep sympathy 
which the species have for drunken men, had 
licked his dusty boots, and curled himself up at 
his feet, and lay there, blinking one eye in the 
sunlight, with a simulation of dissipation that was 
ingenious and dog-like in its implied flattery of 
the unconscious man beside him. 

Meanwhile the shadows of the pine-trees had 
slowly swung around until they crossed the road, 
and their trunks barred the open meadow with 
gigantic parallels of black and yellow. Little 
puffs of red dust, lifted by the plunging hoofs of 
passing teams, dispersed in a grimy shower upon 
the recumbent man. The sun sank lower and 
lower ; and still Sandy stirred not. And then the 
repose of this philosopher was disturbed, as other 
philosophers have been, by the intrusion of an 
unphilosophical sex. 

"Miss Mary,” as she was known to the little 
flock that she had just dismissed from the log 
school-house beyond the pines, was taking her 
afternoon walk. Observing an unusually fine 
cluster of blossoms on the azalea-bush opposite, 
she crossed the road to pluck it, — picking her way 
through the red dust, not without certain fierce lit- 
tle shivers of disgust, and some feline circumlocu- 
tion. And then she came suddenly upon Sandy ! 

Of course she uttered the little staccato cry of 

4 


74 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


her sex. But when she had paid that tribute to 
her physical weakness she became overbold, and 
halted for a moment, — at least six feet from this 
prostrate monster, — with her white skirts gath- 
ered in her hand, ready for flight. But neither 
sound nor motion came from the bush. With 
one little foot she then overturned the satirical 
head-board, and muttered “ Beasts ! ” — an epithet 
which probably, at that moment, conveniently 
classified in her mind the entire male population 
of Red Gulch. For Miss Mary, being possessed 
of certain rigid notions of her own, had not, per- 
haps, properly appreciated the demonstrative gal- 
lantry for which the Californian has been so justly 
celebrated by his brother Californians, and had, as 
a new-comer, perhaps, fairly earned the reputation 
of being “ stuck up.” 

As she stood there she noticed, also, that the 
slant sunbeams were heating Sandy’s head to what 
she judged to be an unhealthy temperature, and 
that his hat was lying uselessly at his side. To 
pick it up and to place it over his face was a work 
requiring some courage, particularly as his eyes 
were open. Yet she did it and made good her re- 
treat. But she was somewhat concerned, on look- 
ing back, to see that the hat was removed, and 
that Sandy was sitting up and saying something. 

The truth was, that in the calm depths of San- 
dy’s mind he was satisfied that the rays of the 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


75 


sun were beneficial and healthful ; that from 
childhood he had objected to lying down in a 
hat ; that no people but condemned fools, past re- 
demption, ever wore hats'; and that his right to 
dispense with them when he pleased was inalien- 
able. This was the statement of his inner con- 
sciousness. Unfortunately, its outward expression 
was vague, being limited to a repetition of the 
following formula, — “ Su’shine all ri’ ! Wasser 
maar, eh ? Wass up, su’shine ? ” 

Miss Mary stopped, and, taking fresh courage 
from her vantage of distance, asked him if there 
-was anything that he wanted. 

“ Wass up ? Wasser maar ? ” continued Sandy, 
in a very high key. 

“ Get up, you horrid man ! ” said Miss Mary, 
now thoroughly incensed ; “ get up, and go home.” 

Sandy staggered to his feet. He was six feet 
high, and Miss Mary trembled. He started for- 
ward a few paces and then stopped. 

“ Wass I go home for ? ” he suddenly asked, 
with great gravity. 

“ Go and take a bath,” replied Miss Mary, eying 
his grimy person with great disfavor. 

To her infinite dismay, Sandy suddenly pulled 
off his coat and vest, threw them on the ground, 
kicked off his boots, and, plunging wildly forward, 
darted headlong over the hill, in the direction of 
the river. 


76 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


“ Goodness Heavens ! — the man will be 
drowned ! ” said Miss Mary ; and then, with femi- 
nine inconsistency, she ran hack to the school- 
house, and locked herself in. 

That night, while seated at supper with her 
hostess, the blacksmith’s wife, it came to Miss 
Mary to ask, demurely, if her husband ever got 
drunk. “ Abner,” responded Mrs. Stidger, re- 
flectively, “ let ’s see : Abner has n’t been tight 
since last ’lection.” Miss Mary would have liked 
to ask if he preferred lying in the sun on these 
occasions, and if a cold bath would have hurt him ; 
but this would have involved an explanation, 
which she did not then care to give. So she con- 
tented herself with opening her gray eyes widely 
at the red-cheeked Mrs. Stidger, — a fine speci- 
men of Southwestern efflorescence, — and then dis- 
missed the subject altogether. The next day she 
wrote to her dearest friend, in Boston : “ I think 
I find the intoxicated portion of this community 
the least objectionable. I refer, my dear, to the 
men, of course. I do not know anything that 
could make the women tolerable.” 

In less than a week Miss Mary had forgotten 
this episode, except that her afternoon walks took 
thereafter, almost unconsciously, another direc- 
tion. She noticed, however, that every morn- 
ing a fresh cluster of azalea-blossoms appeared 
among the flowers on her desk. This was not 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


77 


strange, as her little flock were aware of her fond- 
ness for flowers, and invariably kept her desk 
bright with anemones, syringas, and lupines ; but, 
on questioning them, they, one and all, professed 
ignorance of the azaleas. A few days later, Mas- 
ter Johnny Stidger, whose desk was nearest to 
the window, was suddenly taken with spasms 
of apparently gratuitous laughter, that threatened 
the discipline of the school. All that Miss Mary 
could get from him was, that some one had been 
“ looking in the winder.” Irate and indignant, she 
saUied from her hive to do battle with the intrud- 
er. As she turned the corner of the school-house 
she came plump upon the quondam drunkard, — - 
now perfectly sober, and inexpressibly sheepish 
and guilty-looking. 

These facts Miss Mary was not slow to take a 
feminine advantage of, in her present humor. But 
it was somewhat confusing to observe, also, that 
the beast, despite some faint signs of past dissi- 
pation, was amiable-looking, — in fact, a kind of 
blond Samson, whose corn-colored, silken beard 
apparently had never yet known the touch of bar- 
ber’s razor or Delilah’s shears. So that the cut- 
ting speech which quivered on her ready tongue 
died upon her lips, and she contented herself with 
receiving his stammering apology with supercili- 
ous eyelids and the gathered skirts of uncontam- 
ination. When she re-entered the school-room, 


78 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


her eyes fell upon the azaleas with a new sense of 
revelation. And then she laughed, and the lit- 
tle people all laughed, and they were all uncon- 
sciously very happy. 

It was on a hot day — and not long after this — 
that two short-legged boys came to grief on the 
threshold of the school with a pail of water, which 
they had laboriously brought from the spring, and 
that Miss Mary compassionately seized the pail 
and started for the spring herself. At the foot of 
the hill a shadow crossed her path, and a blue- 
shirted arm dexterously, but gently relieved her 
of her burden. Miss Mary was both embarrassed 
and angry. “ If you carried more of that for your- 
self,” she said, spitefully, to the blue arm, without 
deigning to raise her lashes to its owner, “you’d 
do better.” In the submissive silence that fol- 
lowed she regretted the speech, and thanked him 
so sweetly at the door that he stumbled. Which 
caused the children to laugh again, — a laugh in 
which Miss Mary joined, until the color came 
faintly into her pale cheek. The next day a bar- 
rel was mysteriously placed beside the door, and 
as mysteriously filled with fresh spring-water 
every morning. 

Nor was this superior young person without 
other quiet attentions. “ Profane Bill,” driver of 
the Slumgullion Stage, widely known in the 
newspapers for his “gallantry” in invariably of : 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


79 


fering the box-seat to the fair sex, had excepted 
Miss Mary from this attention, on the ground that 
he had a habit of “ cussin’ on up grades,” and gave 
her half the coach to herself. Jack Hamlin, a 
gambler, having once silently ridden with her in 
the same coach, afterward threw a decanter at the 
head of a confederate for mentioning her name in 
a bar-room. The over-dressed mother of a pupil 
whose paternity was doubtful had often lingered 
near this astute Vestal’s temple, never daring to 
enter its sacred precincts, but content to worship 
the priestess from afar. 

With such unconscious intervals the monoto- 
nous procession of blue skies, glittering sunshine, 
brief twilights, and starlit nights passed over Eed 
Gulch. Miss Mary grew fond of walking in the 
sedate and proper woods. Perhaps she believed, 
with Mrs. Stidger, that the balsamic odors of the 
firs “ did her chest good,” for certainly her slight 
cough was less frequent and her step was firmer ; 
perhaps she had learned the unending lesson which 
the patient pines are never weary of repeating to 
heedful or listless ears. And so, one day, she 
planned a picnic on Buckeye Hill, and took the 
children with her. Away from the dusty road, 
the straggling shanties, the yellow ditches, the 
clamor of restless engines, the cheap finery of shop- 
windows, the deeper glitter of paint and colored 
pj&ss, and the thin veneering which barbarism 


80 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


takes upon itself in such localities, — what infinite 
relief was theirs ! The last heap of ragged rock 
and clay passed, the last unsightly chasm crossed, 
— how the waiting woods opened their long 
files to receive them ! How the children — per- 
haps because they had not yet grown quite away 
from the breast of the bounteous Mother — threw 
themselves face downward on her brown bosom 
with uncouth caresses, filling the air with their 
laughter; and how Miss Mary herself — felinely 
fastidious and intrenched as she was in the purity 
of spotless skirts, collar, and cuffs — forgot all, and 
ran like a crested quail at the head of her brood, 
until, romping, laughing, and panting, with a 
loosened braid of brown hair, a hat hanging by a 
knotted ribbon from her throat, she came suddenly 
and violently, in the heart of the forest, upon — 
the luckless Sandy! 

The explanations, apologies, and not overwise 
conversation that ensued, need not be indicated 
here. It would seem, however, that Miss Mary 
had already established some acquaintance with 
this ex-drunkard. Enough that he was soon ac- 
cepted as one of the party ; that the children, with 
that quick intelligence which Providence gives the 
helpless, recognized a friend, and played with his 
blond beard, and long silken mustache, and took 
other liberties, — as the helpless are apt to do. 
And when he had built a fire against a tree, and 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


81 


liad shown them other mysteries of wood-craft, 
their admiration knew no bounds. At the close 
of two such foolish, idle, happy hours he found 
himself lying at the feet of the schoolmistress, 
gazing dreamily in her face, as she sat upon the 
sloping hillside, weaving wreaths of laurel and 
syringa, in very much the same attitude as he 
had lain when first they met. Nor was the simili- 
tude greatly forced. The weakness of an easy, 
sensuous nature, that had found a dreamy exalta- 
tion in liquor, it is to be feared was now finding 
an equal intoxication in love. 

I think that Sandy was dimly conscious of this 
himself. I know that he longed to be doing some- 
thing, — slaying a grizzly, scalping a savage, or 
sacrificing himself in some way for the sake of 
this sallow-faced, gray-eyed schoolmistress. As I 
should like to present him in a heroic attitude, I 
stay my hand with great difficulty at this moment, 
being only withheld from introducing such an 
episode by a strong conviction that it does not 
usually occur at such times. And I trust that my 
fairest reader, who remembers that, in a real crisis, 
it is always some uninteresting stranger or unro- 
mantic policeman, and not Adolphus, who rescues, 
will forgive the omission. 

So they sat there, undisturbed, — the woodpeck- 
ers chattering overhead, and the voices of the chil- 
dren coming pleasantly from the hollow below. 

4* F 


82 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


What they said matters little. What they thought 
— which might have been interesting — did not 
transpire. The woodpeckers only learned how 
Miss Mary was an orphan ; how she left her 
uncle’s house, to come to California, for the sake 
of health and independence ; how Sandy was an 
orphan, too ; how he came to California for excite- 
ment ; how he had lived a wild life, and how he 
was trying to reform ; and other details, which, 
from a woodpecker’s view-point, undoubtedly must 
have seemed stupid, and a waste of time. But 
even in such trifles was the afternoon spent ; and 
when the children were again gathered, and Sandy, 
with a delicacy which the schoolmistress well un- 
derstood, took leave of them quietly at the out- 
skirts of the settlement, it had seemed the shortest 
day of her weary life. 

As the long, dry summer withered to its roots, 
the school term of Red Gulch — to use a local 
euphuism — “dried up” also. In another day 
Miss Mary would be free ; and for a season, at 
least, Red Gulch would know her no more. She 
was seated alone in the school-house, her cheek 
resting on her hand, her eyes half closed in one 
of those day-dreams in which Miss Mary — I fear, 
to the danger of school discipline — was lately in 
the habit of indulging. Her lap was full of 
mosses, ferns, and other woodland memories. She 
was so preoccupied with these and her own 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


83 


thoughts that a gentle tapping at the door passed 
unheard, or translated itself into the remembrance 
of far-off woodpeckers. When at last it asserted 
itself more distinctly, she started up with a flushed 
cheek and opened the door. On the threshold 
stood a woman, the self-assertion and audacity of 
whose dress were in singular contrast to her timid, 
irresolute bearing. 

Miss Mary recognized at a glance the dubious 
mother of her anonymous pupil. Perhaps she was 
disappointed, perhaps she was only fastidious ; but 
us she coldly invited her to enter, she half un- 
consciously settled her white cuffs and collar, and 
gathered closer her own chaste skirts. It was, 
perhaps, for this reason that the embarrassed 
stranger, after a moment’s hesitation, left her gor- 
geous parasol open and sticking in the dust beside 
the door, and then sat down at the farther end 
of a long bench. Her voice was husky as she 
began : — 

“ I heerd tell that you were goin’ down to the 
Bay to-morrow, and I couldn’t let you go until 
I came to thank you for your kindness to my 
Tommy.” 

Tommy, Miss Mary said, was a good boy, and 
deserved more than the poor attention she could 
give him. 

“ Thank you, miss ; thank ye !” cried the stran- 
ger, brightening even through the color which 


84 


THE IDYL OF BED GULCH. 


Red Gulch knew facetiously as her “ war paint/’ 
and striving, in her embarrassment, to drag the 
long bench nearer the schoolmistress. "I thank 
you, miss, for that ! and if I am his mother, there 
ain’t a sweeter, dearer, better boy lives than him. 
And if I ain’t much as says it, thar ain’t a sweeter, 
dearer, angeler teacher lives than he ’s got.” 

Miss Mary, sitting primly behind her desk, with 
a ruler over her shoulder, opened her gray eyes 
widely at this, hut said nothing. 

“ It ain’t for you to he complimented by the like 
of me, I know,” she went on, hurriedly. “ It 
ain’t for me to he cornin’ here, in broad day, to 
do it, either ; hut I come to 'ask a favor, — not 
for me, miss, — not for me, hut for the darling 
hoy.” 

Encouraged by a look in the young schoolmis- 
tress’s eye, and putting her lilac-gloved hands to- 
gether, the fingers downward, between her knees, 
she went on, in a low voice : — 

“ You see, miss, there ’s no one the hoy has any 
claim on but me, and I ain’t the proper person to 
bring him up. I thought some, last year, of send- 
ing him away to ’Frisco to school, hut when they 
talked of bringing a schoolma’am here, I waited 
till I saw you, and then I knew it was all right, 
and I could keep my boy a little longer. And 0, 
miss, he loves you so much ; and if you could 
hear him talk about you, in his pretty way, and if 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


85 


he could ask you what I ask you now, you could n’t 
refuse him. 

“ It is natural,” she went on, rapidly, in a voice 
that trembled strangely between pride and humil- 
ity, — “ it ’s natural that he should take to you, 
miss, for his father, when I first knew him, was a 
gentleman, — and the boy must forget me, sooner 
or later, — and so I ain’t a goin’ to cry about that. 
For I come to ask you to take my Tommy, — God 
bless him for the bestest, sweetest boy that lives, — < 
to — to — take him with you.” 

She had risen and caught the young girl’s hand 
in her own, and had fallen on her knees beside her. 

“ I ’ve money plenty, and it ’s all yours and his. 
Put him in some good school, where you can go 
and see him, and help him to — to — to forget his 
mother. Do with him what you like. The worst 
you can do will be kindness to what he will learn 
with me. Only take him out of this wicked 
life, this cruel place, this home of shame and sor- 
row. You will; I know you will, — won’t you? 
You will, — you must not, you cannot say no! 
You will make him as pure, as gentle as yourself ; 
and when he has grown up, you will tell him his 
father’s name, — the name that has n’t passed my 
lips for years, — the name of Alexander Morton, 
whom they call here Sandy ! Miss Mary ! — do 
not take your hand away! Miss Mary, speak to 
me ! You will take my boy ? Do not put your 


86 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


face from me. I know it ought not to look on such 
as me. Miss Mary ! — my God, he merciful ! — 
she is leaving me ! ” 

Miss Mary had risen, and, in the gathering twi- 
light, had felt her way to the open window. She 
stood there, leaning against the casement, her eyes 
fixed on the last rosy tints that were fading from 
the western sky. There was still some of its light 
on her pure young forehead, on her white collar, 
on her clasped white hands, hut all fading slowly 
away. The suppliant had dragged herself, still on 
her knees, "beside her. 

“ I know it takes time to consider. I will wait 
here all night ; hut I cannot go until you speak. 
Do not deny me now. You will! — I see it in 
your sweet face, — such a face as I have seen in 
my dreams. I see it in your eyes. Miss Mary ! — 
you will take my hoy ! ” 

The last red beam crept higher, suffused Miss 
Mary’s eyes with something of its glory, flickered, 
and faded, and went out. The sun had set on Red 
Gulch. In the twilight and silence Miss Mary’s 
voice sounded pleasantly. 

“ I will take the hoy/ Send him to me to- 
night.” 

The happy mother raised the hem of Miss Ma- 
ry’s skirts to her lips. She would have "buried her 
hot face in its virgin folds, hut she dared not. 
She rose to her feet. 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 87 

“ Does — this man — know of your intention ? ” 
asked Miss Mary, suddenly. 

“ No, nor cares. He has never even seen the 
child to know it.” 

“ Go to him at once, — to-night, — now ! Tell 
him what you have done. Tell him I have taken 
his child, and tell him — he must never see — see 
- — the child again. Wherever it may be, he must 
not come ; wherever I may take it, he must not 
follow ! There, go now, please, — I ’m weary, and 
— have much yet to do ! ” 

They walked together to the door. On the 
threshold the woman turned. 

“ Good night.” 

She would have fallen at Miss Mary’s feet. But 
at the same moment the young girl reached out 
her arms, caught the sinful woman to her own pure 
breast for one brief foment, and then closed and 
locked the door. 

It was with a sudden sense of great responsi- 
bility that Profane Bill took the reins of the Slum- 
gullion Stage the next morning, for the school- 
mistress was one of his passengers. As he en- 
tered the high-road, in obedience to a pleasant 
, voice from the “ inside,” he suddenly reined up 
his horses and respectfully waited, as “ Tommy ” 
hopped out at the command of Miss Mary. 

“ Not that bush, Tommy, — the next.” 


88 


THE IDYL OF RED GULCH. 


Tommy whipped out his new pocket-knife, and, 
cutting a branch from a tall azalea-bush, returned 
with it to Miss Mary. 

“ All right now ? ” 

“ All right.” 

And the stage-door closed on the Idyl of Red 
Gulch. 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


A SUBDUED tone of conversation, and the ab- 
sence of cigar-smoke and boot-heels at the 
windows of the Wingdam stage-coach, made it evi- 
dent that one of the inside passengers was a woman. 
A disposition on the part of loungers at the sta- 
tions to congregate before the window, and some 
concern in regard to the appearance of coats, hats, 
and collars, further indicated that she was lovely. 
All of which Mr. Jack Hamlin, on the box-seat, 
noted with the smile of cynical philosophy. Not 
that he depreciated the sex, but that he recognized 
therein a deceitful element, the pursuit of which 
sometimes drew mankind away from the equally 
uncertain blandishments of poker, — of which it 
may be remarked that Mr. Hamlin was a profes- 
sional exponent. 

So that, when he placed his narrow boot on the 
wheel and leaped down, he did not even glance at 
the window from which a green veil was flutter- 
ing, but lounged up and down with that listless 
and grave indifference of his class, which was, per- 
haps, the next thing to good-breeding. With his 
closely buttoned figure and self-contained air he 


90 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


was a marked contrast to the other passengers, 
with their feverish restlessness, and boisterous 
emotion ; and even Bill Masters, a graduate of 
Harvard, with his slovenly dress, his overflowing 
vitality, his intense appreciation of lawlessness 
and barbarism, and his mouth filled with crackers 
and cheese, I fear cut but an unromantic figure 
beside this lonely calculator of chances, with his 
pale Greek face and Homeric gravity. 

The driver called “ All aboard ! ” and Mr. Ham- 
lin returned to the coach. His foot was upon the 
wheel, and his face raised to the level of the open 
window, when, at the same moment, what appeared 
to him to be the finest eyes in the world suddenly 
met his. He quietly dropped down again, ad- 
dressed a few words to one of the inside passen- 
gers, effected an exchange of seats, and as quietly 
took his place inside. Mr. Hamlin never allowed 
his philosophy to interfere with decisive and 
prompt action. 

I fear that this irruption of Jack cast some re- 
straint upon the other passengers, — particularly 
those who were making themselves most agreeable 
to the lady. One of them leaned forward, and 
apparently conveyed to her information regarding 
Mr. Hamlin’s profession in a single epithet. 
Whether Mr. Hamlin heard it, or whether he rec- 
ognized in the informant a distinguished jurist, 
from whom, but a few evenings before, he had won 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


91 


several thousand dollars, I cannot say. His col- 
orless face betrayed no sign ; his black eyes, qui- 
etly observant, glanced indifferently past the legal 
gentleman, and rested on the much more pleasing 
features of his neighbor. An Indian stoicism — 
said to be an inheritance from his maternal ances- 
tor — stood him in good service, until the rolling 
wheels rattled upon the river-gravel at Scott’s 
Ferry, and the stage drew up at the International 
Hotel for dinner. The legal gentleman and a 
member of Congress leaped out, and stood ready 
to assist the descending goddess, while Colonel 
Starbottle, of Siskiyou, took charge of her parasol 
and shawl. In this multiplicity of attention there 
was a momentary confusion and delay. Jack 
Hamlin quietly opened the opposite door of the 
coach, took the lady’s hand, — with that decision 
and positiveness which a hesitating and undecided 
sex know how to admire, — and in an instant had 
dexterously and gracefully swung her to the 
ground, and again lifted her to the platform. An 
audible chuckle on the box, I fear, came from 
that other cynic, “ Yuba Bill,” the driver. “ Look 
keerfully arter that baggage, Kernel,” said the ex- 
pressman, with affected concern, as he looked after 
Colonel Starbottle, gloomily bringing up the rear 
of the triumphant procession to the waiting-room. 

Mr. Hamlin did not stay for dinner. His horse 
was already saddled, and awaiting him. He dashed 


92 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


over the ford, up the gravelly hill, and out into the 
dusty perspective of the Wingdam road, like one 
leaving an unpleasant fancy behind him. The 
inmates of dusty cabins by the roadside shaded 
their eyes with their hands, and looked after him, 
recognizing the man by his horse, and speculating 
what “ was up with Comanche Jack.” Yet much 
of this interest centred in the horse, in a com- 
munity where the time made by “ French Pete’s ” 
mare, in his run from the Sheriff of Calaveras, 
eclipsed all concern in the ultimate fate of that 
worthy. 

The sweating flanks of his gray at length recalled 
him to himself. He checked his speed, and, turn- 
ing into a by-road, sometimes used as a cut-off, 
trotted leisurely along, the reins hanging list- 
lessly from his fingers. As he rode on, the char- 
acter of the landscape changed, and became more 
pastoral. Openings in groves of pine and syca- 
more disclosed some rude attempts" at cultivation^ 
— a flowering vine trailed over the porch of one 
cabin, and a woman rocked her cradled babe under 
the roses of another. A little farther on Mr. 
Hamlin came upon some barelegged children, 
wading in the willowy creek, and so wrought 
upon them with a badinage peculiar to himself, 
that they were emboldened to climb up his horse’s 
legs and over his saddle, until he was fain to de- 
velop an exaggerated ferocity of demeanor, and to 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


93 


escape, leaving behind some kisses and coin. And 
then, advancing deeper into the woods, where all 
signs of habitation failed, he began to sing, — up- 
lifting a tenor so singularly sweet, and .shaded by 
a pathos so subduing and tender, that I wot the 
robins and linnets stopped to listen. Mr. Hamlin’s 
voice was not cultivated ; the subject of his song 
was some sentimental lunacy, borrowed from the 
negro minstrels ; but there thrilled through all 
some occult quality of tone and expression that 
was unspeakably touching. Indeed, it was a 
wonderful sight to see this sentimental blackleg, 
with a pack of cards in his pocket and a revolver 
at his back, sending his voice before him through 
the dim woods with a plaint about his “ Nelly’s 
grave,” in a way that overflowed the eyes of the 
listener. A sparrow-hawk, fresh from his sixth 
victim, possibly recognizing in Mr. Hamlin a kin- 
dred spirit, stared at him in surprise, and was fain 
to confess the superiority of man. With a supe- 
rior predatory capacity, he could n’t sing. 

But Mr. Hamlin presently found himself again 
on the high-road, and at his former pace. Ditches 
and banks of gravel, denuded hillsides, stumps, 
and decayed trunks of trees, took the place of 
woodland and ravine, and indicated his approach 
to civilization. Then a church-steeple came in 
sight, and he knew that he had reached home. 
In a few moments he was clattering down the 


94 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


single narrow street, that lost itself in a chaotic 
ruin of races, ditches, and tailings at the foot of 
the hill, and dismounted before the gilded win- 
dows of the “ Magnolia ” saloon. Passing through 
the long bar-room, he pushed open a green-baize 
door, entered a dark passage, opened another door 
w T ith a pass-key, and found himself in a dimly 
lighted room, whose furniture, though elegant and 
costly for the locality, showed signs of abuse. The 
inlaid centre-table was overlaid with stained disks 
that were not contemplated in the original design. 
The embroidered arm-chairs were discolored, and 
the green velvet lounge, on which Mr. Hamlin 
threw himself, was soiled at the foot with the red 
soil of Wingdam. 

Mr. Hamlin did not sing in his cage. He lay 
still, looking at a highly colored painting above 
him, representing a young creature of opulent 
charms. It occurred to him then, for the first 
time, that he had never seen exactly that kind 
of a woman, and that, if he should, he would not, 
probably, fall in love with her. Perhaps he was 
thinking of another style of beauty. But just then 
some one knocked at the door. Without rising, 
he pulled a cord that apparently shot back a bolt, 
for the door swung open, and a man entered. 

The new-comer was broad-shouldered and ro- 
bust, — a vigor not borne out in the face, which, 
though handsome, was singularly weak, and dis- 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


95 


figured by dissipation. He appeared to be also 
under the influence of liquor, for he started on 
seeing Mr. Hamlin, and said, “ I thought Kate 
was here ” ; stammered, and seemed confused and 
embarrassed. 

Mr. Hamlin smiled the smile which he had be- 
fore worn on the Wingdam coach, and sat up, quite 
refreshed and ready for business. 

“You didn’t come up on the stage,” continued 
the new-comer, “ did you ? ” 

“ No,” replied Hamlin ; “ I left it at Scott’s 
Ferry. It is n’t due for half an hour yet. But 
how ’s luck, Brown ? ” 

“D bad,” said Brown, his face suddenly 

assuming an expression of weak despair ; “I’m 
cleaned out again. Jack,” he continued, in a 
whining tone, that formed a pitiable contrast 
to his bulky figure, “ can’t you help me with 
a hundred till to-morrow’s clean-up ? You see 
I ’ve got to send money home to the old woman, 
and — you ’ve won twenty times that amount 
from me.” 

The conclusion was, perhaps, not entirely logi- 
cal, but Jack overlooked it, and handed the sum 
to his visitor. “ The old woman business is about 
played out, Brown,” he added, by way of commen-^ 
tary ; “ why don’t you say you want to buck agin’ 
faro ? You know you ain’t married ! ” 

“ Fact, sir,” said Brown, with a sudden gravity, 


96 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


as if the mere contact of the gold with the palm 
of the hand had imparted some dignity to his 

frame. “ I Ve got a wife — a d good one, 

too, if I do say it — in the States. It ’s three 
year since I Ve seen her, and a year since I Ve 
writ to her. When things is about straight, and 
we get down to the lead, I ’m going to send for 
her.” 

“ And Kate ? ” queried Mr. Hamlin, with his 
previous smile. 

Mr. Brown, of Calaveras, essayed an archness of 
glance, to cover his confusion, which his weak face 
and whiskey-muddled intellect but poorly carried 
out, and said, — 

“ D it, Jack, a man must have a little lib- 

erty, you know. But come, what do you say to a 
little game ? Give us a show to double this hun- 
dred.” 

Jack Hamlin looked curiously at his fatuous 
friend. Perhaps he knew that the man was pre- 
destined to lose the money, and preferred that it 
should flow back into his own coffers rather than 
any other. He nodded his head, and drew his 
chair toward the table. At the same moment 
there came a rap upon the door. 

“ It ’s Kate,” said Mr. Brown. 

Mr. Hamlin shot back the bolt, and the door 
opened. But, for the first time in his life, he stag- 
gered to his feet, utterly unnerved and abashed. 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


97 


and for the first time in his life the hot blood 
crimsoned his colorless cheeks to his forehead. * 
For before him stood the lady he had lifted from 
the Wingdam coach, whom Brown — dropping his 
cards with a hysterical laugh — greeted as 

“ My old woman, by thunder ! ” 

They say that Mrs. Brown hurst into tears, and 
reproaches of her husband. I saw her, in 1857, 
at Marysville, and disbelieve the story. And 
the Wingdam Chronicle, of the next week, under 
the head of “ Touching Keunion,” said : “ One of 
those beautiful and touching incidents, peculiar 
to California life, occurred last week in our city. 
The wife of one of WingdanTs eminent pioneers, 
tired of the effete civilization of the East and its 
inhospitable climate, resolved to join her noble 
husband upon these golden shores. Without in- 
forming him of her intention, she undertook the 
long journey, and arrived last week. The joy of 
the husband may be easier imagined than de- 
scribed. The meeting is said to have been inde- 
scribably affecting. We trust her example may 
tie followed.” 

Whether owing to Mrs. Brown’s influence, or to 
some more successful speculations, Mr. Brown’s 
financial fortune from that day steadily improved. 
He bought out his partners in the “ Nip and Tuck ” 
lead, with money which was said to have been won 
6 6 


<6 


98 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


at poker, a week or two after his wife’s arrival, but 
which rumor, adopting Mrs. Brown’s theory that 
Brown had forsworn the gaming-table, declared to 
have been furnished by Mr. Jack Hamlin. He built 
and furnished the “ Wingdam House,” which pretty 
Mrs. Brown’s great popularity kept overflowing 
with guests. He was elected to the Assembly, 
and gave largess to churches. A street in Wing- 
dam was named in his honor. 

Yet it was noted that in proportion as he waxed 
wealthy and fortunate, he grew pale, thin, and 
anxious. As his wife’s popularity increased, he 
became fretful and impatient. The most uxorious 
of husbands, he was absurdly jealous. If he 
did not interfere with his wife’s social liberty, it 
was because it was maliciously whispered that 
his first and only attempt was met by an outburst 
from Mrs. Brown that terrified him into silence. 
Much of this kind of gossip came from those of 
her own sex whom she had supplanted in the 
chivalrous attentions of Wingdam, which, like 
most popular chivalry, was devoted to an admira- 
tion of power, whether of masculine force or fem- 
inine beauty. It should be remembered, too, in 
her extenuation, that, since her arrival, she had 
been the unconscious priestess of a mythological 
worship, perhaps not more ennobling to her woman- 
hood than that which distinguished an older Greek 
democracy. I think that Brown was dimly con- 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 99 

scious of this. But his only confidant was Jack 
Hamlin, whose infelix reputation naturally pre- 
cluded any open intimacy with the family, and 
whose visits were infrequent. 

It was midsummer, and a moonlit night ; and 
Mrs. Brown, very rosy, large-eyed, and pretty, sat 
upon the piazza, enjoying the fresh incense of the 
mountain breeze, and, it is to be feared, another 
incense which was not so fresh, nor quite as inno- 
cent. Beside her sat Colonel Starbottle and Judge 
Boompointer, and a later addition to her court, in 
the shape of a foreign tourist. She was in good 
spirits. 

“ What do you see down the road ? ” inquired 
the gallant Colonel, who had been conscious, for 
the last few minutes, that Mrs. Brown’s attention 
was diverted. 

“ Dust,” said Mrs. Brown, with a sigh. “ Only 
Sister Anne’s ‘ flock of sheep.’ ” 

The Colonel, whose literary recollections did not 
extend farther back than last week’s paper, took a 
more practical view. “ It ain’t sheep,” he contin- 
ued ; “ it ’s a horseman. Judge, ain’t that Jack 
Hamlin’s gray?” 

But the Judge did n’t know ; and, as Mrs. Brown 
suggested the air was growing too cold for further 
investigations, they retired to the parlor. 

. Mr. Brown was in the stable, where he gener- 
ally retired after dinner. Perhaps it was to show 


100 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


Ills contempt for his wife’s companions ; perhaps, 
like other weak natures, he found pleasure in the 
exercise of absolute power over inferior animals. 
He had a certain gratification in the training of a 
chestnut mare, whom he could heat or caress as 
pleased him, which he could n’t do with Mrs. 
Brown. It was here that he recognized a certain 
gray horse which had just come in, and, looking a 
little farther on, found his rider. Browm’s greet- 
ing was cordial and hearty ; Mr. Hamlin’s some- 
what restrained. But at Brown’s urgent request, 
he followed him up the hack stairs to a narrow 
corridor, and thence to a small room looking out 
upon the stahle-yard. It was plainly furnished 
with a hed, a table, a few chairs, and a rack for 
guns and whips. 

“ This yer ’s my home, Jack,” said Brown, with 
a sigh, as he threw himself upon the bed, and mo- 
tioned his companion to a chair. “ Her room ’s 
t’ other end of the hall. It ’s more'’n six months 
since we ’ve lived together, or met, except at meals. 
It ’s mighty rough papers on the head of the house, 
ain’t it ? ” he said, with a forced laugh. “ But I ’m 

glad to see you, Jack, d glad,” and he reached 

from the hed, and again shook the unresponsive 
hand of Jack Hamlin. 

“ I brought ye up here, for I did n’t want to 
talk in the stable ; though, for the matter of that, 
it ’s all round town. Don’t strike a light. We 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


101 


can talk here in the moonshine. Put up your feet 
on that winder, and sit here beside me. Thar ’s 
whiskey in that jug.” 

Mr. Hamlin did not avail himself of the infor- 
mation. Brown, of Calaveras, turned his face to 
the wall, and continued : — 

“ If I did n’t love the woman, Jack, I would n’t 
mind. But it ’s loving her, and seeing her, day 
arter day, goin’ on at this rate, and no one to put 
down the brake ; that ’s what gits me 1 But I ’m 

glad to see ye, Jack, d glad.” 

In the darkness he groped about until he had 
found and wrung his companion’s hand again. He 
would have detained it, but Jack slipped it into 
the buttoned breast of his coat, and asked, list- 
lessly, “ How long has this been going on ? ” 

“ Ever since she came here ; ever since the day 
she walked into the Magnolia. I was a fool then ; 
Jack, I ’m a fool now ; but I eUd n’t know how 
much I loved her till then. An t she has n’t been 
the same woman since. 

“ But that ain’t all, Jack ; and it ’s what I 
wanted to see you about, and l ’m glad you ’ve 
come. It ain’t that she does n’t love me any 
more ; it ain’t that she fools with every chap 
that comes along, for, perhaps, [ staked her love 
and lost it, as I did everything else at the Mag- 
nolia ; and, perhaps, foolin’ is nateral to some 
women, and thar ain’t no grea/ harm done, ’cept 


102 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


to the fools. But, Jack, I think, — I think she 
loves somebody else. Don’t move, Jack; don’t 
move ; if your pistol hurts ye, take it off. 

“ It ’s been more ’n six months now that she ’s 
seemed unhappy and lonesome, and kinder nervous 
’and scared like. And sometimes I ’ve ketched 
her lookin’ at me sort of timid and pitying. And 
she writes to somebody. And for the last week 
she ’s been gathering her own things, — trinkets, 
and furbelows, and jew’lry, — and, Jack, I think 
she ’s goin’ off. I could stand all but that. To 
have her steal away like a thief — ” He put his 
face downward to the pillow, and for a few mo- 
ments there was no sound but the ticking of a 
clock on the mantel. Mr. Hamlin lit a cigar, 
and moved to the open window. The moon no 
longer shone into the room, and the bed and its 
occupant were in shadow. “What shall I do. 
Jack ? ” said the voice from the darkness. 

The answer came promptly and clearly from the 
window-side, — “Spot the man, and kill him on- 
sight.” 

“But, Jack?” 

“ He ’s took the risk ! ” 

“ But will that bring her back ? ” 

J ack did not reply, but moved from the window 
towards the door. 

“Don’t go yet, Jack; light the candle, and sit 
by the table. It ’s a comfort to see ye, if nothin’ 
else.” 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


103 


Jack hesitated, and then complied. He drew a 
pack of cards from his pocket and shuffled them, 
glancing at the bed. But Brown’s face was turned 
to the wall. When Mr. Hamlin had shuffled the 
cards, he cut them, and dealt one card on the op- 
posite side of the table and towards the bed, and 
another on his side of the table for himself. The 
first was a deuce ; his own card, a king. He then 
shuffled and cut again. This time “ dummy ” had 
a queen, and himself a four-spot. Jack brightened 
up for the third deal. It brought his adversary a 
deuce, and himself a king again. “Two out of 
three,” said Jack, audibly. 

“ What ’s that. Jack ? ” said Brown. 

“ Nothing.” 

Then Jack tried his hand with dice ; but he al- 
ways threw sixes, and his imaginary opponent 
aces. The force of habit is sometimes confus- 
ing. 

Meanwhile, some magnetic influence in Mr. 
Hamlin’s presence, or the anodyne of liquor, or 
both, brought surcease of sorrow, and Brown slept. 
Mr. Hamlin moved his chair to the window, and 
looked out on the town of Wingdam, now sleeping 
peacefully, — its harsh outlines softened and sub- 
dued, its glaring colors mellowed and sobered in 
the moonlight that flowed over all. In the hush 
he could hear the gurgling of water in the ditches, 
and the. sighing of the pines beyond the hilL 


104 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


Then he looked up at the firmament, and as ne 
did so a star shot across the twinkling field. Pres- 
ently another, and then another. The phenome- 
non suggested to Mr. Hamlin a fresh augury. If 
in another fifteen minutes another star should 
fall — He sat there, watch in hand, for twice 
that time, hut the phenomenon was not repeated. 

The clock struck two, and Brown still slept. 
Mr. Hamlin approached the table, and took from 
his pocket a letter, which he read by the flicker- 
ing candle-light. It contained only a single line, 
written in pencil, in a woman’s hand, — 

“ Be at the corral, with the buggy, at three.” 

The sleeper moved uneasily, and then awoke. 
“ Are you there. Jack ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Don’t go yet. I dreamed just now, Jack, — 
dreamed of old times. I thought that Sue and me 
-was being married agin, and that the parson. Jack, 
was — who do you think ? — you ! h 

The gambler laughed, and seated himself on the 
-bed, — the paper still in his hand. 

“ It ’s a good sign, ain’t it ? ” queried Brown. 

“ I reckon. Say, old man, had n’t you better get 
up?” 

The “ old man,” thus affectionately appealed to, 
rose, with the assistance of Hamlin’s outstretched 
hand. 

“ Smoke ? ” 


BROWN OF CALAVEIl kS. 


105 


Brown mechanically took the v ^offered cigar. 

“ Light?” 

Jack had twisted the letter in f o a spiral, lit it, 
and held it for his companion. He continued to 
hold it until it was consumed, and dropped the 
fragment — a fiery star — from the open window. 
He watched it as it fell, and then returned to his 
friend. 

“ Old man,” he said, placing his hands upon 
Brown’s shoulders, “ in ten minutes I ’ll he on the 
road, and gone like that spark. We won’t see each 
other agin ; hut, before I go, take a fool’s advice : 
sell out all you ’ve got, take your wife with you, 
and quit the country. It ain’t no place for you, 
nor her. Tell her she must go ; make her go, if 
she won’t. Don’t whine because you can’t be a 
saint, and she ain’t an angel. Be a man, — and 

treat her like a woman. Don’t be a d fool. 

Good by.” 

He tore himself from Brown’s grasp, and leaped 
down the stairs like a deer. At the stable-door he 
collared the half-sleeping hostler, and backed him 
against the wall. “ Saddle my horse in two min- 
utes, or I ’ll — ” The ellipsis was frightfully sug- 
gestive. 

“ The missis said you was to have the buggy/* 
stammered the man. 

“ D n the buggy ! ” 

The horse was saddled as fast as the nervous 

5 * 


106 


BROWN OF CALAVERAS. 


hands of the astounded hostler could manipulate 
buckle and strap. 

“ Is anything up, Mr. Hamlin ? ” said the man, 
who, like all his class, admired the 4lan of his fiery 
patron, and was really concerned in his welfare. 

“ Stand aside ! ” 

The man fell back. With an oath, a bound, and 
clatter, Jack was into the road. In another mo- 
ment, to the man’s half-awakened eyes, he was but 
a moving cloud of dust in the distance, towards 
which a star just loosed from its brethren was 
trailing a stream of fire. 

But early that morning the dwellers by the 
Wingdam turnpike, miles away, heard a voice, 
pure as a sky-lark’s, singing afield. They who 
were asleep turned over on their rude couches to 
dream of youth and love and olden days. Hard- 
faced men and anxious gold-seekers, already at 
work, ceased their labors and leaned upon their 
picks, to listen to a romantic vagabond ambling 
away against the rosy sunrise. 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


W HEN the tide was out on the Dedlow 
Marsh, its extended dreariness was patent. 
Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools, 
and tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel- 
like, toward the open hay, were all hard facts. So 
were the few green tussocks, with their scant 
blades, their amphibious flavor, and unpleasant 
dampness. And if you choose to indulge your 
fancy, — although the flat monotony of the Ded- 
low Marsh was not inspiring, — the wavy line of 
scattered drift gave an unpleasant consciousness 
of the spent waters, and made the dead certainty 
of the returning tide a gloomy reflection, which no 
present sunshine' could dissipate. The greener 
meadow-land seemed oppressed with this idea, and 
made no positive attempt at vegetation until the 
work of reclamation should be complete. In the 
bitter fruit of the low cranberry-bushes one might 
fancy he detected a naturally sweet disposition 
curdled and soured by an injudicious course of too 
much regular cold water. 

The vocal expression of the Dedlow Marsh was 
also melancholy and depressing. The sepulchral 


108 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


boom of the bittern, the shriek of the curlew, the 
scream of passing brent, the wrangling of quarrel- 
some teal, the sharp, querulous protest of the 
startled crane, and syllabled complaint of the 
“ killdeer ” plover were beyond the power of writ- 
ten expression. Nor was the aspect of these 
mournful fowls at all cheerful and inspiring. Cer- 
tainly not the blue peron standing midleg deep 
in the water, obviously catching cold in a reckless 
disregard of wet feet and consequences ; nor the 
mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or the low- 
spirited snipe, who saw fit to join him in his 
suicidal contemplation ; nor the impassive king- 
fisher — an ornithological Marius — reviewing the 
desolate expanse ; nor the black raven that went 
to and fro over the face of the marsh continu- 
ally, but evidently could n’t make up his mind 
whether the waters had subsided, and felt low- 
spirited in the reflection that, after all this trouble, 
he would n’t be able to give a definite answer. 
On the contrary, it was evident at a glance that 
the dreary expanse of Dedlow Marsh told un- 
pleasantly on the birds, and that the season of 
migration was looked forward to with a feeling of 
relief and satisfaction by the full-grown, and of 
extravagant anticipation by the callow, brood. But 
if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless at the slack of the 
low tide, you should have seen it when the tide 
was strong and full. When the damp air blew 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


109 


chilly over the cold, glittering expanse, and came 
to the faces of those who looked seaward like 
another tide ; when a steel-like glint marked the 
low hollows and the sinuous line of slough ; when 
the great shell-incrusted trunks of fallen trees 
arose again, and went forth on their dreary, pur- 
poseless wanderings, drifting hither and thither, 
but getting no farther toward any goal at the fall- 
ing tide or the day’s decline than the cursed He- 
brew in the legend ; when the glossy ducks swung 
silently, making neither ripple nor furrow on the 
shimmering surface ; when the fog came in with 
the tide and shut out the blue above, even as the 
green below had been obliterated ; when boatmen, 
lost in that fog, paddling about in a hopeless way, 
started at what seemed the brushing of mermen’s 
fingers on the boat’s keel, or shrank from the tufts 
of grass spreading around like the floating hair of 
a corpse, and knew by these signs that they were 
lost upon Dedlow Marsh, and must make a night 
of it, and a gloomy one at that, — then you might 
know something of Dedlow Marsh at high water. 

Let me recall a story connected with this latter 
view which never failed to recur to my mind in 
my long gunning excursions upon Dedlow Marsh. 
Although the event was briefly recorded in the 
county paper, I had the story, in all its eloquent 
detail, from the lips of the principal actor. I can- 
not hope to catch the varying emphasis and pecu- 


110 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


liar coloring of feminine delineation, for my nar- 
rator was a woman ; but I ’ll try to give at least 
its substance. 

She lived midway of the. great slough of Ded- 
low Marsh and a good-sized river, which de- 
bouched four miles beyond into an estuary formed 
by the Pacific Ocean, on the long sandy penin- 
sula which constituted the southwestern boundary 
of a noble bay. The house in which she lived 
was a small frame cabin raised from the marsh 
a few feet by stout piles, and was three miles dis- 
tant from the settlements upon the river. Her 
husband was a logger, — a profitable business in 
a county where the principal occupation was the 
manufacture of lumber. 

It was the season of early spring, when her hus- 
band left on the ebb of a high tide, with a raft of 
logs for the usual transportation to the lower end 
of the bay. As she stood by the door of the lit- 
tle cabin when the voyagers departed she noticed 
a cold look in the southeastern sky, and she re- 
membered hearing her husband say to his com- 
panions that they must endeavor to complete 
their voyage before the coming of the southwest- 
erly gale which he saw brewing. And that night 
it began to storm and blow harder than she had 
ever before experienced, and some great trees fell 
in the forest by the river, and the house rocked 
like her baby’s cradle. 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


Ill 


But however the storm might roar about the 
little cabin, she knew that one she trusted had 
driven bolt and bar with his own strong hand, 
and that had he feared for her he would not 
have left her. This, and her domestic duties, and 
the care of her little sickly baby, helped to keep 
her mind from dwelling on the weather, except, of 
course, to hope that he was safely harbored with 
the logs at Utopia in the dreary distance. But 
she noticed that day, when she went out to feed 
the chickens and look after the cow, that the 
tide was up to the little fence of their garden- 
patch, and the roar of the surf on the south 
beach, though miles away, she could hear dis- 
tinctly. And she began to think that she would 
like to have some one to talk with about mat- 
ters, and she believed that if it had not been so 
far and so stormy, and the trail so impassable, 
she would have taken the baby and have gone 
over to ‘Ryckman’s, her nearest neighbor. But 
then, you see, he might have returned in the 
storm, all wet, with no one to see to him ; and it 
was a long exposure for baby, who was croupy 
and ailing. 

But that night, she never could tell why, she 
did n’t feel like sleeping or even lying down. The 
storm had somewhat abated, but she still “ sat and 
sat,” and even tried to read. I don’t know whether 
it was a Bible or some profane magazine that this 


112 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


poor woman read, but most probably the latter, for 
the words all ran together and made such sad non- 
sense that she was forced at last to put the book 
down and turn to that dearer volume which lay 
before her in the cradle, with its white initial leaf 
as yet unsoiled, and try to look forward to its mys- 
terious future. And, rocking the cradle, she thought 
of everything and everybody, but still was wide 
awake as ever. 

It was nearly twelve o’clock when she at last 
laid down in her clothes. How long she slept she 
could not remember, but she awoke with a dread- 
ful choking in her throat, and found herself stand- 
ing, trembling all over, in the middle of the room, 
with her baby clasped to her breast, and she was 
“ saying something.” The baby cried and sobbed, 
and she walked up and down trying to hush it, 
when she heard a scratching at the door. She 
opened it fearfully, and was glad to see it was 
only old Pete, their dog, who crawled, dripping 
with water, into the room. She would like to 
have looked out, not in the faint hope of her hus- 
band’s coming, but to see how things looked ; but 
the wind shook the door so savagely that she could 
hardly hold it. Then she sat down a little while, 
and then walked up and down a little while, and 
then she lay down again a little while. Lying 
close by the wall of the little cabin, she thought 
she heard once or twice something scrape slowly 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


113 


against the clapboards, like the scraping of branches. 
Then there was a little gurgling sound, “ like the 
baby made when it was swallowing ” ; then some- 
thing went “ click-click ” and “ cluck-cluck,” so 
that she sat up in bed. "When she did so she was 
attracted by something else that seemed creeping 
from the back door towards the centre of the room. 
It was n’t much wider than her little finger, but 
soon it swelled to the width of her hand, and be- 
gan spreading all over the floor. It was water. 

She ran to the front door and threw it wide 
open, and saw nothing but water. She ran to the 
back door and threw it open, and saw nothing but 
water. She ran to the side window, and, throwing 
that open, she saw nothing but water. Then she 
remembered hearing her husband once say that 
there was no danger in the tide, for that fell regu- 
larly, and people could calculate on it, and that he 
would rather live near the bay than the river, 
whose banks might overflow at any time. But 
was it the tide ? So she ran again to the back 
door, and threw out a stick of wood. It drifted 
away towards the bay. She scooped up some of 
the water and put it eagerly to her lips. It was 
fresh and sweet. It was the river, and not the 
tide! 

It was then — 0, God be praised for his good- 
ness ! she did neither faint nor fall ; it was then — 
blessed be the Saviour for it was his merciful 


114 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


hand that touched and strengthened her in this 
awful moment — that fear dropped from her like 
a garment, and her trembling ceased. It was then 
and thereafter that she never lost her self-com- 
mand, through all the trials of that gloomy night. 

She drew the bedstead towards the middle of 
the room, and placed a table upon it and on that 
she put the cradle. The water on the floor was 
already over her ankles, and the house once or 
twice moved so perceptibly, and seemed to he 
racked so, that the closet doors all flew open. 
Then she heard the same rasping and thumping 
against the wall, and, looking out, saw that a large 
uprooted tree, which had lain near the road at the 
upper end of the pasture, had floated down to the 
house. Luckily its long roots dragged in the soil 
and kept it from moving as rapidly as the current, 
for had it struck the house in its full career, even 
the strong nails and holts in the piles could not 
have withstood the shock. The hound had leaped 
upon its knotty surface, and crouched near the 
roots shivering and whining. A ray of hope 
flashed across her mind. She drew a heavy 
blanket from the bed, and, wrapping it about the 
babe, waded in the deepening waters to the door. 
As the tree swung again, broadside on, making the 
little cabin creak and tremble, she leaped on to its 
trunk. By God’s mercy she succeeded in obtain- 
ing a footing on its slippery surface, and, twining 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


115 


ail arm about its roots, she held in the other her 
moaning child. Then something cracked near the 
front porch, and the whole front of the house she 
had just quitted fell forward, — just as cattle fall 
on their knees before they lie down, — and at the 
same moment the great redwood-tree swung round 
and drifted away with its living cargo into the 
black night. 

For all the excitement and danger, for all her 
soothing of her crying babe, for all the whistling 
of the wind, for all the uncertainty of her situa- 
tion, she still turned to look at the deserted and 
water-swept cabin. She remembered even then, 
and she wonders how foolish she was to think of 
it at that time, that she wished she had put on 
another dress and the baby’s best clothes ; and 
she kept praying that the house would be spared 
so that he, when he returned, would have some- 
thing to come to, and it wouldn’t be quite so 
desolate, and — how could he ever know what had 
become of her and baby ? And at the thought 
she grew sick and faint. But she had something 
else to do besides worrying, for whenever the long 
roots of her ark struck an obstacle, the whole 
trunk made half a revolution, and twice dipped 
her in the black water. The hound, who kept 
distracting her by running up and down the tree 
and howling, at last fell off at one of these collis- 
ions. He swam for some time beside her, and she 


116 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


tried to get the poor beast upon the tree, blit he 
“acted silly” and wild, and at last she lost sight of 
him forever. Then she and her baby were left 
alone. The light which had burned for a few 
minutes in the deserted cabin was quenched sud- 
denly. She could not then tell whither she was 
drifting. The outline of the white dunes on the 
peninsula showed dimly ahead, and she judged 
the tree was moving in a line with the river. It 
must be about slack water, and she had probably 
reached the eddy formed by the confluence of the 
tide and the overflowing waters of the river. Un- 
less the tide fell soon, there was present danger of 
her drifting to its channel, and being carried out 
to sea or crushed in the floating drift. That peril 
averted, if she were carried out on the ebb toward 
the bay, she might hope to strike one of the 
wooded promontories of the peninsula, and rest 
till daylight. Sometimes she thought she heard 
voices and shouts from the river, and the bellow- 
ing of cattle and bleating of sheep. Then again 
it was only the ringing in her ears and throbbing 
of her heart. She found at about this time that 
she was so chilled and stiffened in her cramped 
position that she could scarcely move, and the baby 
cried so when she put it to her breast that she 
noticed the milk refused to flow ; and she was so 
frightened at that, that she put her head under 
her shawl, and for the first time cried bitterly. 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


117 


When she raised her head again, the boom of 
the surf was behind her, and she knew that her 
ark had again swung round. She dipped up the 
water to cool her parched throat, and found that it 
was salt as her tears. There was a relief, though, 
for by this sign she knew that she was drifting 
with the tide. It was then the wind went down, and 
the great and awful silence oppressed her. There 
was scarcely a ripple against the furrowed sides of 
the great trunk on which she rested, and around 
her all was black gloom and quiet. She spoke to 
the baby just to hear herself speak, and to know that 
she had not lost her voice. She thought then, — 
it was queer, but she could not help thinking it, — 
how awful must have been the night when the 
great ship swung over the Asiatic peak, and the 
sounds of creation were blotted out from the world. 
She thought, too, of mariners clinging to spars, and 
of poor women who were lashed to rafts, and beaten 
to death by the cruel sea. She tried to thank God 
that she was thus spared, and lifted her eyes from 
the baby who had fallen into a fretful sleep. Sud- 
denly, away to the southward, a great light lifted 
itself out of the gloom, and flashed and flickered, 
and flickered and flashed again. Her heart fluttered 
quickly against the baby’s cold cheek. It was the 
lighthouse at the entrance of the bay. As she 
was yet wondering, the tree suddenly rolled a lit- 
tle, dragged a little, and then seemed to lie quiet 


118 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


and still. She put out her hand and the current 
gurgled against it. The tree was aground, and, by 
the position of the light and the noise of- the surf, 
aground upon the Dedlow Marsh. 

Had it not been for her baby, who was ailing and 
croupy, had it not been for the sudden drying up 
of that sensitive fountain, she would have felt safe 
and relieved. Perhaps it was this which tended to 
make all her impressions mournful and gloomy. 
As the tide rapidly fell, a great flock of black brent 
fluttered by her, screaming and crying. Then the 
plover flew up and piped mournfully, as they 
wheeled around the trunk, and at last fearlessly lit 
upon it like a gray cloud. Then the heron flew 
over and around her, shrieking and protesting, and 
at last dropped its gaunt legs only a few yards from 
her. But, strangest of all, a pretty white bird, 
larger than a dove, — like a pelican, but not a peli- 
can, — circled around and around her. At last it 
lit upon a rootlet of the tree, quite over her shoul- 
der. She put out her hand and stroked its beau- 
tiful white neck, and it never appeared to move. 
It stayed there so long that she thought she would 
lift up the baby to see it, and try to attract her at- 
tention. But when she did so, the child was so . 
chilled and cold, and had such a blue look under 
the little lashes which it did n’t raise at all, that 
she screamed aloud, and the bird flew away, and 
she fainted. 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


119 


Well, that was the worst of it, and perhaps it 
was not so much, after all, to any but herself. 
Tor when she recovered her senses it was bright 
sunlight, and dead low water. There was a con- 
fused noise of guttural voices about her, and an 
old squaw, singing an Indian “hushaby,” and 
rocking herself from side to side before a fire 
built on the marsh, before which she, the recov- 
ered wife and mother, lay weak and weary. Her 
first thought was for her baby, and she was about 
to speak, when a young squaw, who must have 
been a mother herself, fathomed her thought and 
brought her the “ mowitch,” pale but living, in 
such a queer little willow cradle all bound up, just 
like the squaw’s own young one, that she laughed 
and cried together, and the young squaw and the 
old squaw showed their big white teeth and 
glinted their black eyes and said, “Plenty get 
well, skeena mowitch,” “ wagee man come plenty 
soon,” and she could have kissed their brown faces 
in her joy. And then she found that they had 
been gathering berries on the marsh in their queer, 
comical baskets, and saw the skirt of her gown 
fluttering on the tree from afar, and the old squaw 
could n’t resist the temptation of procuring a new 
garment, and came down and discovered the “ wa- 
gee ” woman and child. And of course she gave 
the garment to the old squaw, as you may imagine, 
and when he came at last and rushed up to her, 


120 


HIGH-WATER MARK. 


looking about ten years older in his anxiety, she 
felt so faint again that they had to carry her to 
the canoe. For, you see, he knew nothing about 
the flood until he met the Indians at Utopia, and 
knew by the signs that the poor woman was his 
wife. And at the next high-tide he towed the 
tree away back home, although it wasn’t worth 
the trouble, and built another house, using the 
old tree for the foundation and props, and called 
it after her, “ Mary’s Ark ! ” But you may guess 
the next house was built above High-water mark. 
And that’s all. 

Not much, perhaps, considering the malevolent 
capacity of the Dedlow Marsh. But you must 
tramp over it at low water, or paddle over it at 
high tide, or get lost upon it once or twice in 
the fog, as I have, to understand properly Mary’s 
adventure, or to appreciate duly the blessings of 
living beyond High-Water Mark. 


. A LONELY RIDE. 


S I stepped into tlie Slumgullion stage I saw 



ii that it was a dark night, a lonely road, and 
that I was the only passenger. Let me assure the 
reader that I have no ulterior design in making 
this assertion. A long course of light reading has 
forewarned me what every experienced intelligence 
must confidently look for from such a statement. 
The story-teller who wilfully tempts Eate by such 
obvious beginnings ; who is to the expectant reader 
in danger of being robbed or half murdered, or 
frightened by an escaped lunatic, or introduced to 
his lady-love for the first time, deserves to be de- 
tected. I am relieved to say that none of these 
things occurred to me. The road from Wingdam 
to Slumgullion knew no other banditti than the 
regularly licensed hotel-keepers ; lunatics had not 
yet reached such depth of imbecility as to ride 
of their own free-will in California stages ; and my 
Laura, amiable and long-suffering as she always is, 
could not, I fear, have borne up against these de- 
pressing circumstances long enough to have made 
the slightest impression on me. 

I stood with my shawl and carpet-bag in hand. 


122 


A LONELY RIDE. 


gazing doubtingly on the vehicle. Even in the 
darkness the red dust of Wingdam was visible 
on its roof and sides, and the red slime of Slum- 
gullion clung tenaciously to its wheels. I opened 
the door ; the stage creaked uneasily, and in the 
gloomy abyss the swaying straps beckoned me, 
like ghostly hands, to come in now, and have my 
sufferings out at once. 

I must not omit to mention the occurrence of a 
circumstance which struck me as appalling and 
mysterious. A lounger on the steps of the hotel, 
whom I had reason to suppose was not in any way 
connected with the stage company, gravely de- 
scended, and, walking toward the conveyance, tried 
the handle of the door, opened it, expectorated 
in the carriage, and returned to the hotel with a 
serious demeanor. Hardly had he resumed his 
position, when another individual, equally dis- 
interested, impassively walked down the steps, 
proceeded to the back of the stage, lifted it, ex- 
pectorated carefully on the axle, and returned 
slowly and pensively to the hotel. A third spec- 
tator wearily disengaged himself from one of the 
Ionic columns of the portico and walked to the 
box, remained for a moment in serious and expec- 
torative contemplation of the boot, and then re- 
turned to his column. There was something so 
weird in this baptism that I grew quite nervous. 

Perhaps I was out of spirits. A number of in- 


A LONELY RIDE. 


123 


finitesimal annoyances, winding up with the res- 
olute persistency of the clerk at the stage-office 
to enter my name misspelt on the way-bill, had 
not predisposed me to cheerfulness. The inmates 
of the Eureka House, from a social view-point, 
were not attractive. There was the prevailing 
opinion — so common to many honest people — 
that a serious style of deportment and conduct 
toward a stranger indicates high gentility and 
elevated station. Obeying this principle, all hi- 
larity ceased on my entrance 'to supper, and gen- 
eral remark merged into the safer and uncompro- 
mising chronicle of several bad cases of diphtheria, 
then epidemic at Wingdam. When I left the 
dining-room, with an odd feeling that I had been 
supping exclusively on mustard and tea-leaves, I 
stopped a moment at the parlor door. A piano, 
harmoniously related to the dinner-bell, tinkled re- 
sponsive to a diffident and uncertain touch. On the 
white wall the shadow of an old and sharp profile 
was bending over several symmetrical and shadowy 
curls. “ I sez to Mariar, Mariar, sez I, ‘ Praise to the 
face is open disgrace.’ ” I heard no more. Dreading 
some susceptibility to sincere expression on the 
subject of female loveliness, I walked away, check- 
ing the compliment that otherwise might have 
risen unbidden to my lips, and have brought 
shame and sorrow to the household. 

It was with the memory of these experiences 


124 


A LONELY RIDE. 


resting heavily upon me, that I stood hesitatingly 
before the stage door. The driver, about to mount, 
was for a moment illuminated by the open door of 
the hotel. He had the wearied look which was 
the distinguishing expression of Wingdam. Satis- 
fied that I was properly way-billed and receipted 
for, he took no further notice of me. I looked 
longingly at the box-seat, but he did not respond 
to the appeal. I flung my carpet-bag into the 
chasm, dived recklessly after it, and — before I 
was fairly seated — with a great sigh, a creak- 
ing of unwilling springs, complaining bolts, and 
harshly expostulating axle, we moved away. 
Eather the hotel door slipped behind, the sound 
of the piano sank to rest, and the night and its 
shadows moved solemnly upon us. 

To say it was dark expressed but faintly the 
pitchy obscurity that encompassed the vehicle. 
The roadside trees were scarcely distinguishable as 
deeper masses of shadow; I knew them only by 
the peculiar sodden odor that from time to time slug- 
gishly flowed in at the open window as we rolled 
by. We proceeded slowly ; so leisurely that, lean- 
ing from the carriage, I more than once detected 
the fragrant sigh of some astonished cow, whose 
ruminating repose upon the highway we had ruth- 
lessly disturbed. But in the darkness our progress, 
more the guidance of some mysterious instinct 
than any apparent volition of our own, gave an 


A LONELY RIDE. 


125 


indefinable charm of security to onr journey, that 
a moment’s hesitation or indecision on the part of 
the driver would have destroyed. 

I had indulged a hope that in the empty vehi- 
cle I might obtain that rest so often denied me 
in its crowded condition. It was a weak delusion. 
When I stretched out my limbs it was only to find 
that the ordinary conveniences for making several 
people distinctly uncomfortable were distributed 
throughout my individual frame. At last, resting 
my arms on the straps, by dint of much gymnas- 
tic effort I became sufficiently composed to be 
aware of a more refined species of torture. The 
springs of the stage, rising and falling regularly, 
produced a rhythmical beat, which began to pain- 
fully absorb my attention. Slowly this thumping 
merged into a senseless echo of the mysterious 
female of the hotel parlor, and shaped itself into 
this awful and benumbing axiom, — “ Praise-to-the- 
face-is-open-disgrace. Praise-to-the-face-is-open- 
disgrace.” Inequalities of the road only quickened 
its utterance or drawled it to an exasperating 
length. 

It was of no use to seriously consider the state- * 
ment. It was of no use to except to it indignantly. 
It was of no use to recall the many instances 
where praise to the face had redounded to the 
everlasting honor of praiser and bepraised ; of no 
use to dwell sentimentally on modest genius and 


126 


A LONELY EIDE. 


courage lifted up and strengthened by open com- 
mendation ; of no use to except to the mysterious 
female, — to picture her as rearing a thin-blooded 
generation on selfish and mechanically repeated 
axioms, — all this failed to counteract the monoto- 
nous repetition of this sentence. There was noth- 
ing to do hut to give in, — and I was about to ac- 
cept it weakly, as we too often treat other illusions 
of darkness and necessity, for the time being, — 
when I became aware of some other annoyance 
that had been forcing itself upon me for the last 
few moments. How quiet the driver was ! 

Was there any driver ? Had I any reason to 
suppose that he was not lying, gagged and bound 
on the roadside, and the highwayman, with black- 
ened face who did the thing so quietly, driving me 
— whither ? The thing is perfectly feasible. And 
what is this fancy now being jolted out of me. A 
story ? It *s of no use to keep it back, — particu- 
larly in this abysmal vehicle, and here it comes : 
I am a Marquis, — a French Marquis ; French, be- 
cause the peerage is not so well known, and the 
country is better adapted to romantic incident, — 
a Marquis, because the democratic reader delights 
in the nobility. My name is something ligny. I 
am coming from Paris to my country-seat at St. 
Germain. It is a dark night, and I fall asleep and 
tell my honest coachman, Andre, not to disturb me, 
and dream of an angel. The carriage at last stops 


A LONELY HIDE. 


127 


at the chateau. It is so dark that when I alight 

O 

I do not recognize the face of the footman who 
holds the carriage door. But what of that ? — peste ! 
I am heavy with sleep. The same obscurity also 
hides the old familiar indecencies of the statues 
on the terrace ; but there is a door, and it opens 
and shuts behind me smartly. Then I find myself 
in a trap, in the presence of the brigand who has 
quietly gagged poor Andr4 and conducted the car- 
riage thither. There is nothing for me to do, as a 
gallant French Marquis, but to say, “ Parbleu ! ” 
draw my rapier, and die valorously ! I am found a 
week or two after, outside a deserted cabaret near 
the barrier, with a hole through my ruffled linen 
and my pockets stripped. No ; on second thoughts, 
I am rescued, — rescued by the angel I have been 
dreaming of, who is the assumed daughter of the 
brigand, but the real daughter of an intimate 
friend. 

Looking from the window again, in the vain 
hope of distinguishing the driver, I found my eyes 
were growing accustomed to the darkness. I could 
see the distant horizon, defined by India-inky 
woods, relieving a lighter sky. A few stars widely 
spaced in this picture glimmered sadly. I noticed 
again the infinite depth of patient sorrow in their 
serene faces ; and I hope that the Vandal who first 
applied the flippant “ twinkle ” to them may not be 
driven melancholy mad by their reproachful eyes. 


128 


A LONELY RIDE. 


I noticed again the mystic charm of space that im- 
parts a sense of individual solitude to each integer 
of the densest constellation, involving the smallest 
star with immeasurable loneliness. Something of 
this calm and solitude crept over me, and I dozed in 
my gloomy cavern. When I awoke the full moon 
was rising. Seen from my window, it had an 
indescribably unreal and theatrical effect. It was 
the full moon of Norma, — that remarkable celestial 
phenomenon which rises so palpably to a hushed 
audience and a sublime andante chorus, until the 
Casta Diva is sung, — the “ inconstant moon” that 
then and thereafter remains fixed in the heavens as 
though it were a part of the solar system inaugu- 
rated by Joshua. Again the white-robed Druids 
filed past me, again I saw that improbable mistle- 
toe cut from that impossible oak, and again cold 
chills ran down my back with the first strain of the 
recitative. The thumping springs essayed to beat 
time, and the private-box-like obscurity of the 
vehicle lent a cheap enchantment to the view. 
But it was a vast improvement upon my past ex- 
perience, and I hugged the fond delusion. 

My fears for the driver were dissipated wfith the 
rising moon. A familiar sound had assured me of 
his presence in the full possession of at least one 
of his most important functions. Frequent and 
full expectoration convinced me that his lips were 
as yet not sealed by the gag of highwaymen, and 


A LONELY RIDE. 


129 


soothed my anxious ear. With this load lifted 
from my mind, and assisted by the mild presence 
of Diana, who left, as when she visited Endymion, 
much of her splendor outside my cavern, — I 
looked around the empty vehicle. On the forward 
seat lay a woman’s hair-pin. I picked it up with 
an interest that, however, soon abated. There was 
no scent of the roses to cling to it still, not even 
of hair-oil. No bend or twist in its rigid angles 
betrayed any trait of its wearer’s character. I 
tried to think that it might have been “ Mariar’s.” 
I tried to imagine that, confining the symmet- 
rical curls of that girl, it might have heard the 
soft compliments whispered in her ears, which 
provoked the wrath of the aged female. But in 
vain. It was reticent and unswerving in its up- 
right fidelity, and at last slipped listlessly through 
my fingers. 

I had dozed repeatedly, — waked on the thresh- 
old of oblivion by contact with some of the angles 
of the coach, and feeling that I was uncon- 
sciously assuming, in imitation of a humble in- 
sect of my childish recollection, that spherical 
shape which could best resist those impressions, 
when I perceived that the moon, riding high in 
the heavens, had begun to separate the formless 
masses of the shadowy landscape. Trees isolated, 
in clumps and assemblages, changed places before 
my window. The sharp outlines of the distant 

6* i 


130 


A LONELY RIDE. 


hills came hack, as in daylight, hut little softened 
in the dry, cold, dewless air of a California sum- 
mer night. I was wondering how late it was, and 
thinking that if the horses of the night travelled as 
slowly as the team before us, Faustus might have 
been spared his agonizing prayer, when a sudden 
spasm of activity attacked my driver. A succes- 
sion of whip-snappings, like a pack of Chinese 
crackers, broke from the box before me. The stage 
leaped forward, and when I could pick myself 
from under the seat, a long white building had in 
some mysterious way rolled before my window. 
It must he Slumgullion ! As I descended from the 
stage I addressed the driver : — 

“ I thought you changed horses on the road ? ” 

“ So we did. Two hours ago.” 

“ That ’s odd. I did n’t notice it.” 

“ Must have been asleep, sir. Hope you had a 
pleasant nap. Bully place for a nice quiet snooze, 
— empty stage, sir ! ” 


THE MAH OF HO ACCOUHT. 


H IS name was Fagg, — David Fagg. He came 
to California in ’52 with us, in the “ Sky- 
scraper.” I don’t think he did it in an adventu- 
rous way. He probably had no other place to go 
to. When a knot of us young fellows would recite 
what splendid opportunities we resigned to go, and 
how sorry our friends were to have us leave, and 
show daguerreotypes and locks of hair, and talk of 
Mary and Susan, the man of no account used to 
sit by and listen with a pained, mortified expres- 
sion on his plain face, and say nothing. I think he 
had nothing to say. He had no associates except 
when we patronized him ; and, in point of fact, he 
was a good deal of sport to us. He was always 
sea-sick whenever we had a capful of wind. He 
never got his sea-legs on either. And I never 
shall forget how we all laughed when Eattler took 
him the piece of pork on a string, and — But you 
know that time-honored joke. And then we had 
such a splendid lark with him. Miss Fanny 
Twinkler could n’t bear the sight of him, and we 
used to make Fagg think that she had taken a 


132 


THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT. 


fancy to him, and send him little delicacies and 
hooks from the cabin. Yon ought to have wit- 
nessed the rich scene that took place when he 
came up, stammering and very sick, to thank her l 
Did n’t she flash up grandly and beautifully and 
scornfully ? So like “ Medora,” Rattler said, — Rat- 
tler knew Byron by heart, — and was n’t old Fagg 
awfully cut up ? But he got over it, and when 
Rattler fell sick at Valparaiso, old Fagg used to 
nurse him. You see he was a good sort of fellow, 
but he lacked manliness and spirit. 

He had absolutely no idea of poetry. I ’ve seen 
him sit stolidly by, mending his old clothes, when 
Rattler delivered that stirring apostrophe of By- 
ron’s to the ocean. He asked Rattler once, quite 
seriously, if he thought Byron was ever sea-sick. 
I don’t remember Rattler’s reply, but I know we 
all laughed very much, and I have no doubt it was 
something good, for Rattler was smart. 

When the “ Skyscraper ” arrived at San Fran- 
cisco we had a grand “feed.” We agreed to meet 
every year and perpetuate the occasion. Of course 
we did n’t invite Fagg. Fagg was a steerage-pas- 
senger, and it was necessary, you see, now we were 
ashore, to exercise a little discretion. But Old Fagg, 
as we called him, — he was only about twenty-five 
years old, by the way, — was the source of im- 
mense amusement to us that day. It appeared 
that he had conceived the idea that he could walk 


THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT. 


133 


to Sacramento, and actually started off afoot. We 
had a good time, and shook hands with one another 
all around, and so parted. Ah me ! only eight 
years ago, and yet some of those hands then 
clasped in amity have been clenched at each other, 
or have dipped furtively in one another’s pockets. 
I know that we did n’t dine together the next year, 
because young Barker swore he would n’t put his 
feet under the same mahogany with such a very 
contemptible scoundrel as that Mixer; and Nib- 
bles, who borrowed money at Valparaiso of young 
Stubbs, who was then a waiter in a restaurant, 
did n’t like to meet such people. 

When I bought a number of shares in the Coyote 
Tunnel at Muggins ville, in ’54, I thought I ’d 
take a run up there and see it. I stopped at the 
Empire Hotel, and after dinner I got a horse and 
rode round the town and out to the claim. One 
of those individuals whom newspaper correspond- 
ents call “ our intelligent informant,” and to whom 
in all small communities the right of answering 
questions is tacitly yielded, was quietly pointed 
out to me. Habit had enabled him to work and 
talk at the same time, and he never pretermitted 
either. He gave me a history of the claim, and 
added : “You see, stranger ” (he addressed the bank 
before him), “gold is sure to come out ’er that theer 
claim (lie put in a comma with his pick), but the 
old pro-pri-e-tor (he wriggled out the word and the 


134 


THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT. 


point of his pick) warn’t of much account (a long 
stroke of the pick for a period). He was green, 
and let the boys about here jump him,” — and the 
rest of his sentence was confided to his hat, which 
he had removed to wipe his manly brow with his 
red bandanna. 

I asked him who was the original proprietor. 

“ His name war Fagg.” 

I went to see him. He looked a little older and 
plainer. He had worked hard, he said, and was 
getting on “ so, so.” I took quite a liking to him 
and patronized him to some extent. Whether I 
did so because I was beginning to have a distrust 
for such fellows as Eattler and Mixer is not neces- 
sary for me to state. 

You remember how the Coyote Tunnel went in, 
and how awfully we shareholders were done ! 
Well, the next thing I heard was that Eattler, who 
was one of the heaviest shareholders, was up at 
Mugginsville keeping bar for the proprietor of the 
Muggins ville Hotel, and that old Fagg had struck 
it rich, and didn’t know what to do with his 
money. All this was told me by Mixer, who had 
been there, setthng up matters, and Ekewise that 
Fagg was sweet upon the daughter of the proprie- 
tor of the aforesaid hotel. And so by hearsay and 
letter I eventually gathered that old Eobins, the 
hotel man, was trying to get up a match between 
Nellie Eobins and Fagg. NeHie was a pretty. 


THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT. 


135 


plump, and foolish little thing, and would do just 
as her father wished. I thought it would he a 
good thing for Fagg if he should marry and settle 
down ; that as a married man he might he of some 
account. So I ran up to Mugginsville one day to 
look after things. 

It did me an immense deal of good to make 
Rattler mix my drinks for me, — Rattler ! the gay, 
brilliant, and unconquerable Rattler, who had tried 
to snub me two years ago. I talked to him about 
old Fagg and Nellie, particularly as I thought the 
subject was distasteful. He never liked Fagg, and 
he was sure, he said, that Nellie did n’t. Did Nel- 
lie like anybody else ? He turned around to the 
mirror behind the bar and brushed up his hair ! I 
understood the conceited wretch. I thought I ’d 
put Fagg on his guard and get him to hurry up 
matters. I had a long talk with him. You could 
see by the way the poor fellow acted that he was 
badly stuck. He sighed, and promised to pluck 
up courage to hurry matters to a crisis. Nellie 
was a good girl, and I think had a sort of quiet 
respect for old Fagg’s unobtrusiveness. But her 
fancy was already taken captive by Rattler’s su- 
perficial qualities, which were obvious and pleas- 
ing. I don’t think Nellie was any worse than you 
or I. We are more apt to take acquaintances at 
their apparent value than their intrinsic worth. 
It’s less trouble, and, except when we want to 


136 


THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT. 


trust them, quite as convenient. The difficulty 
with women is that their feelings are apt to get 
interested sooner than ours, and then, you know, 
reasoning is out of the question. This is what old 
Fagg would have known had he been of any ac- 
count. But he was n’t. So much the worse for 
him. 

It was a few months afterward, and I was sit- 
ting in my office when in walked old Fagg. I 
was surprised to see him down, but we talked 
over the current topics in that mechanical manner 
of people who know that they have something 
else to say, but are obliged to get at it in that for- 
mal way. After an interval Fagg in his natural 
manner said, — 

“ I ’m going home ! ” 

“ Going home ? ” 

“ Yes, — that is, I think I ’ll take a trip to the 
Atlantic States. I came to see you, as you know 
I have some little property, and I have executed 
a power of attorney for you to manage my affairs. 
I have some papers I ’d like to leave with you. 
Will you take charge of them ? ” 

“Yes,” I said. “But what of Nellie ?” 

His face fell. He tried to smile, and the com- 
bination resulted in one of the most startling and 
grotesque effects I ever beheld. At length he 
said, — 

“ I shall not marry Nellie, — that is,” — he 


THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT. 137 

seemed to apologize internally for the positive form 
of expression, — “ I think that I had better not.” 

“ David Fagg,” I said with sudden severity, 
“ you ’re of no account ! ” 

To my astonishment his face brightened. “ Yes,” 
said he, “ that ’s it ! — I ’m of no account ! But I 
always knew it. You see I thought Battler loved 
that girl as well as I did, and I knew she liked 
him better than she did me, and would he happier 
I dare say with him. But then I knew that old 
Bobins would have preferred me to him, as I was 
better off, — and the girl would do as he said, — 
and, you see, I thought I was kinder in the way, — 
and so I left. But,” he continued, as I was 
about to interrupt him, “for fear the old man 
might object to Battler, I ’ve lent him enough to 
set him up in business for himself in Dogtown. 
A pushing, active, brilliant fellow, you know, like 
Battler can get along, and will soon be in his old 
position again, — and you need n’t be hard on him, 
you know, if he does n’t. G-ood by.” 

I was too much disgusted with his treatment of 
that Battler to be at all amiable, but as his busi- 
ness was profitable, I promised to attend to it, and 
he left. A few weeks passed. The return steamer 
arrived, and a terrible incident occupied the papers 
for days afterward. People in all parts of the 
State conned eagerly the details of an awful ship- 
week, and those who had friends aboard went 


138 


THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT. 


away by themselves, and read the long list of the 
lost under their breath. I read of the gifted, the 
gallant, the noble, and loved ones who had perished, 
and among them I think I was the first to read 
the name of David Fagg. For the “man of no 
account” had “ gone home!” 


STORIES. 

\ 
























MLISS 


CHAPTER I. 

J UST where the Sierra Nevada begins to sub- 
side in gentler undulations, and the rivers 
grow less rapid and yellow, on the side of a 
great red mountain, stands “ Smith’s Pocket.” 
Seen from the red road at sunset, in the red 
light and the red dust, its white houses look like 
the outcroppings of quartz on the mountain-side. 
The red stage topped with red-shirted passengers 
is lost to view half a dozen times in the tortuous 
descent,^ turning up unexpectedly in out-of-the- 
way places, and vanishing altogether within a 
hundred yards of the town. It is probably owing 
to this sudden twist in the road that the advent 
of a stranger at Smith’s Pocket is usually attended 
with a peculiar circumstance. Dismounting from 
the vehicle at the stage-office, the too confident 
traveller is apt to walk straight out of town under 
the impression that it lies in quite another direc- 
tion. It is related that one of the tunnel-men, 
two miles from town, met one of these self- 


142 


MLISS. 


reliant passengers with a carpet-bag, umbrella, ' 
Harper’s Magazine, and other evidences of “ Civi- 
lization and Refinement, ” plodding along over the 
road he had just ridden, vainly endeavoring to 
find the settlement of Smith’s Pocket. 

An observant traveller might have found some 
compensation for his disappointment in the weird 
aspect of that vicinity. There were huge fissures 
on the hillside, and displacements of the red 
soil, resembling more the chaos of some primary 
elemental upheaval than the work of man ; while, 
half-way down, a long flume straddled its narrow 
body and disproportionate legs over the chasm, 
like an enormous fossil of some forgotten ante- 
diluvian. At every step smaller ditches crossed 
the road, hiding in their sallow depths unlovely 
streams that crept away to a clandestine union 
with the great yellow torrent below, and here and 
there were the ruins of some cabin with the 
chimney alone left intact and the hearthstone open 
to the skies. 

The settlement of Smith’s Pocket owed its 
origin to the finding of a “ pocket” on its site 
by a veritable Smith. Five thousand dollars 
were taken out of it in one half-hour by Smith. 
Three thousand dollars were expended by Smith 
and others in erecting a flume and in tunnelling. 
And then Smith’s Pocket was found to be only 
a pocket, and subject like other pockets to deple- 


MLISS. 


143 


tion. Although Smith pierced the bowels of 
the great red mountain, that five thousand dollars 
was the first and last return of his labor. The 
mountain grew reticent of its golden secrets, and 
the flume steadily ebbed away the remainder of 
Smith’s fortune. Then Smith went into quartz- 
mining ; then into quartz-milling ; then into hy- 
draulics and ditching, and then by easy degrees 
into saloon-keeping. Presently it was whispered 
that Smith was drinking a great deal ; then it 
was known that Smith was a habitual drunkard, 
and then people began to think, as they are apt 
to, that he had never been anything else. But 
the settlement of Smith’s Pocket, like that of 
most discoveries, was happily not dependent on 
the fortune of its pioneer, and other parties pro- 
jected tunnels and found pockets. So Smith’s 
Pocket became a settlement with its two fancy 
stores, its two hotels, its one express-office, and its 
two first families. Occasionally its one long strag- 
gling street was overawed by the assumption of 
the latest San Francisco fashions, imported' per 
express, exclusively to the first families ; making 
outraged Nature, in the ragged outline of her fur- 
rowed surface, look still more homely, and putting 
personal insult on that greater portion of the popu- 
lation to whom the Sabbath, with a change of 
linen, brought merely the necessity of cleanliness, 
without the luxury of adornment. Then there 


144 


MLISS. 


was a Methodist Church, and hard by a Monte 
Bank, and a little beyond, on the mountain-side, a 
graveyard ; and then a little school-house. 

“The Master,” as he was known to his little 
flock, sat alone one night in the school-house, 
with some open copy-books before him, carefully 
making those bold and full characters which are 
supposed to combine the extremes of chirographi- 
cal and moral excellence, and had got as far as 
“ Biches are deceitful,” and was elaborating the 
noun with an insincerity of flourish that was quite 
in the spirit of his text, when he heard a gentle 
tapping. The woodpeckers had been busy about 
the roof during the day, and the noise did not dis- 
turb his work. But the opening of the door, and 
the tapping continuing from the inside, caused him 
to look up. He was slightly startled by the figure 
of a young girl, dirty and shabbily clad. Still, her 
great black eyes, her coarse, uncombed, lustreless 
black hair falling over her sun-burned face, her red 
arms and feet streaked with the red soil, were all 
familiar to him. It was Melissa Smith, — Smith’s 
motherless child. 

What can she want here ? ” thought the master. 
Everybody knew “ Mliss,” as she was called, 
throughout the length and height of Bed Moun- 
tain. Everybody knew her as an incorrigible girl. 
Her fierce, ungovernable disposition, her mad freaks 
and lawless character, were in their way as prover- 


MLISS. 


145 


bial as the story of her father’s weaknesses, and as 
philosophically accepted by the townsfolk. She 
wrangled with and fought the school-boys with 
keener invective and quite as powerful arm. She 
followed the trails with a woodman’s craft, and the 
master had met her before, miles away, shoeless, 
stockingless, and bareheaded on the mountain 
road. The miners’ camps along the stream sup- 
plied her with subsistence during these voluntary 
pilgrimages, in freely offered alms. Not but that 
a larger protection had been previously extended 
to Mliss. The Rev. Joshua McSnagley, “ stated ” 
preacher, had placed her in the hotel as servant, 
by way of preliminary refinement, and had in- 
troduced her to his scholars at Sunday school. 
But she threw plates occasionally at the landlord, 
and quickly retorted to the cheap witticisms of the 
guests, and created in the Sabbath school a sensa- 
tion that was so inimical to the orthodox dulness 
.and placidity of that institution, that, with a de- 
cent regard for the starched frocks and unblem- 
ished morals of the two pink-and-white-faced chil- 
dren of the first families, the reverend gentleman 
had her ignominiously expelled. Such were the 
antecedents, and such the character of Mliss, as she 
stood before the master. It was shown in the 
ragged dress, the unkempt hair, and bleeding feet, 
and asked his pity. It flashed from her black, 
fearless eyes, and commanded his respect. 

7 j 


146 


MLISS. 


“ I come here to-night,” she said rapidly and 
boldly, keeping her hard glance on his, “ because I 
knew you was alone. I would n’t come here when 
them gals was here. I hate ’em and they hates me. 
That ’s why. You keep school, don’t you ? I want 
to be teached ! ” 

If to the shabbiness of her apparel and uncome- 
liness of her tangled hair and dirty face she had 
added the humility of tears, the master would have 
extended to her the usual moiety of pity, and 
nothing more. But with the natural, though il- 
logical instincts of his species, her boldness awak- 
ened in him something of that respect which 
all original natures pay unconsciously to one an- 
other in any grade. And he gazed at her the more 
fixedly as she went on still rapidly, her hand on 
that door-latch and her eyes on his : — 

“ My name ’s Mliss, — Mliss Smith ! You can bet 
your life on that. My father ’s Old Smith, — Old 
Bummer Smith, — that ’s what ’s the matter with 
him. Mliss Smith, — and I ’m coming to school ! ” 
“ Well ? ” said the master. 

Accustomed to be thwarted and opposed, often 
wantonly and cruelly, for no other purpose than to 
excite the violent impulses of her nature, the mas- 
ter’s phlegm evidently took her by surprise. She 
stopped ; she began to twist a lock of her hair be- 
tween her fingers ; and the rigid line of upper lip, 
drawn over the wicked little teeth, relaxed and 


MLISS. 


147 


quivered slightly. Then her eyes dropped, and 
something like a blush struggled up to her cheek, 
and tried to assert itself through the splashes of 
redder soil, and the sunburn of years. Suddenly 
she threw herself forward, calling on God to strike 
her dead, and fell quite weak and helpless, with 
her face on the master’s desk, crying and sobbing 
as if her heart would break. 

The master lifted her gently and waited for the 
paroxysm to pass. When with face still averted, 
she was repeating between her sobs the mea culpa 
of childish penitence, — that “ she ’d be good, she 
did n’t mean to,” etc., it came to him to ask her 
why she had left Sabbath school. 

Why had she left the Sabbath school ? — why ? 
0 yes. What did he (McSnagley) want to tell 
her she was wicked for ? What did he tell her 
that God hated her for ? If God hated her, what 
did she want to go to Sabbath school for ? She 
didn’t want to be “beholden” to anybody who 
hated her. 

Had she told McSnagley this ? 

Yes, she had. 

The master laughed. It was a hearty laugh, 
and echoed so oddly in the little school-house, and 
seemed so inconsistent and discordant with the 
sighing of the pines without, that he shortly 
corrected himself with a sigh. The sigh was 
quite as sincere in its way, however, and after a 


144 


MLISS. 


was a Methodist Church, and hard by a Monte 
Bank, and a little beyond, on the mountain-side, a 
graveyard ; and then a little school-house. 

"The Master,” as he was known to his little 
flock, sat alone one night in the school-house, 
with some open copy-books before him, carefully 
making those bold and full characters which are 
supposed to combine the extremes of chirographi- 
cal and moral excellence, and had got as far as 
“ Biches are deceitful,” and was elaborating the 
noun with an insincerity of flourish that was quite 
in the spirit of his text, when he heard a gentle 
tapping. The woodpeckers had been busy about 
the roof during the day, and the noise did not dis- 
turb his work. But the opening of the door, and 
the tapping continuing from the inside, caused him 
to look up. He was slightly startled by the figure 
of a young girl, dirty and shabbily clad. Still, her 
great black eyes, her coarse, uncombed, lustreless 
black hair falling over her sun-burned face, her red 
arms and feet streaked with the red soil, were all 
familiar to him. It was Melissa Smith, — Smith’s 
motherless child. 

* What can she want here ? ” thought the master. 
Everybody knew “ Mliss,” as she was called, 
throughout the length and height of Red Moun- 
tain. Everybody knew her as an incorrigible girl. 
Her fierce, ungovernable disposition, her mad freaks 
and lawless character, were in their way as prover- 


MLISS. 


145 


bial as the story of her father’s weaknesses, and as 
philosophically accepted by the townsfolk. She 
wrangled with and fought the school-boys with 
keener invective and quite as powerful arm. She 
followed the trails with a woodman’s craft, and the 
master had met her before, miles away, shoeless, 
stockingless, and bareheaded on the mountain 
road. The miners’ camps along the stream sup- 
plied her with subsistence during these voluntary 
pilgrimages, in freely offered alms. Not but that 
a larger protection had been previously extended 
to Mliss. The Rev. J oshua McSnagley, “ stated ” 
preacher, had placed her in the hotel as servant, 
by way of preliminary refinement, and had in- 
troduced her to his scholars at Sunday school. 
But she threw plates occasionally at the landlord, 
and quickly retorted to the cheap witticisms of the 
guests, and created in the Sabbath school a sensa- 
tion that was so inimical to the orthodox dulness 
.and placidity of that institution, that, with a de- 
cent regard for the starched frocks and unblem- 
ished morals of the two pink-and- white-faced chil- 
dren of the first families, the reverend gentleman 
had her ignominiously expelled. Such were the 
antecedents, and such the character of Mliss, as she 
stood before the master. It was shown in the 
ragged dress, the unkempt hair, and bleeding feet, 
and asked his pity. It flashed from her black, 
fearless eyes, and commanded his respect. 

7 j 


146 


MUSS. 


“I come here to-night,” she said rapidly and 
boldly, keeping her hard glance on his, “ because I 
knew you was alone. I would n’t come here when 
them gals was here. I hate ’em and they hates me. 
That ’s why. You keep school, don’t you ? I want 
to be teached ! ” 

If to the shabbiness of her apparel and uncome- 
liness of her tangled hair and dirty face she had 
added the humility of tears, the master would have 
extended to her the usual moiety of pity, and 
nothing more. But with the natural, though il- 
logical instincts of his species, her boldness awak- 
ened in him something of that respect which 
all original natures pay unconsciously to one an- 
other in any grade. And he gazed at her the more 
fixedly as she went on still rapidly, her hand on 
that door-latch and her eyes on his : — 

“ My name ’s Mliss, — Mliss Smith ! You can bet 
your life on that. My father ’s Old Smith, — Old 
Bummer Smith, — that ’s what ’s the matter with 
him. Mliss Smith, — and I ’m coming to school ! ” 
“ Well ? ” said the master. 

Accustomed to be thwarted and opposed, often 
wantonly and cruelly, for no other purpose than to 
excite the violent impulses of her nature, the mas- 
ter’s phlegm evidently took her by surprise. She 
stopped ; she began to twist a lock of her hair be- 
tween her fingers ; and the rigid line of upper lip, 
drawn over the wicked little teeth, relaxed and 


MLISS. 


147 


quivered slightly. Then her eyes dropped, and 
something like a blush struggled up to her cheek, 
and tried to assert itself through the splashes of 
redder soil, and the sunburn of years. Suddenly 
she threw herself forward, calling on God to strike 
her dead, and fell quite weak and helpless, with 
her face on the master’s desk, crying and sobbing 
as if her heart would break. 

The master lifted her gently and waited for the 
paroxysm to pass. When with face still averted, 
she was repeating between her sobs the mea culpa 
of childish penitence, — that “ she ’d be good, she 
did n’t mean to,” etc., it came to him to ask her 
why she had left Sabbath school. 

Why had she left the Sabbath school ? — why ? 
O yes. What did he (McSnagley) want to tell 
her she was wicked for ? What did he tell her 
that God hated her for ? If God hated her, what 
did she want to go to Sabbath school for ? She 
did n’t want to be “ beholden ” to anybody who 
hated her. 

Had she told McSnagley this ? 

Yes, she had. 

The master laughed. It was a hearty laugh, 
and echoed so oddly in the little school-house, and 
seemed so inconsistent and discordant with the 
sighing of the pines without, that he shortly 
corrected himself with a sigh. The sigh was 
quite as sincere in its way, however, and after a 


148 


MUSS. 


moment of serious silence he asked about her 
father. 

Her father ? What father ? Whose father ? 
What had he ever done for her ? W T hy did the 
girls hate her ? Come now ! what made the 
folks say, “ Old Bummer Smith’s Mliss ! ” when she 
passed ? Yes ; 0 yes. She wished he was dead, 
— she was dead, — everybody was dead ; and her 
sobs broke forth anew. 

The master then, leaning over her, told her as 
w^ell as he could what you or I might have said 
after hearing such unnatural theories from child- 
ish lips ; only bearing in mind perhaps better than 
you or I the unnatural facts of her ragged dress, 
her bleeding feet, and the omnipresent shadow of 
her drunken father. Then, raising her to her feet, 
he wrapped his shawl around her, and, bidding her 
come early in the morning, he walked with her 
down the road. There he bade her “good night.” 
The moon shone brightly on the narrow path be- 
fore them. He stood and watched the bent little 
figure as it staggered down the road, and waited 
until it had passed the little graveyard and 
reached the curve of the hill, where it turned and 
stood for a moment, a mere atom of suffering out- 
lined against the far-off patient stars. Then he 
went back to his work. But the lines of the copy- 
book thereafter faded into long parallels of never- 
ending road, over which childish figures seemed to 


MLISS. 


149 


pass sobbing and ciying into the night. Then, the 
little school-house seeming lonelier, than before, he 
shut the door and went home. 

The next morning Mliss came to school. Her 
face had been washed, and her coarse black hair 
bore evidence of recent struggles with the comb, 
in which both had evidently suffered. The old 
defiant look shone occasionally in her eyes, but her 
manner was tamer and more subdued. Then be- 
gan a series of little trials and self-sacrifices, in 
which master and pupil bore an equal part, and 
which increased the confidence and sympathy be- 
tween them. Although obedient- under the mas- 
ter’s eye, at times during recess, if thwarted or 
stung by a fancied slight, Mliss would rage in un- 
governable fury, and many a palpitating young 
savage, finding himself matched with his own 
weapons of torment, would seek the master with 
torn jacket and scratched face, and complaints of 
the dreadful Mliss. There was a serious division 
among the townspeople on the subject ; some 
threatening to withdraw their children from such 
evil companionship, and others as warmly uphold- 
ing the course of the master in his work of rec- 
lamation. Meanwhile, with a steady persistence 
that seemed quite astonishing to him on looking 
back afterward, the master drew Mliss gradually 
out of the shadow of her past life, as though it 
were but her natural progress down the narrow 


150 


MLISS. 


path on which he had set her feet the moonlit 
night of their first meeting. Eemembering the 
experience of the evangelical McSnagley, he care- 
fully avoided that Eock of Ages on which that 
unskilful pilot had shipwrecked her young faith. 
But if, in the course of her reading, she chanced 
to stumble upon those few words which have Efted 
such as she above the level of the older, the wiser, 
and the more prudent, — if she learned something 
of a faith that is symbolized by suffering, and the 
old light softened in her eyes, it did not take 
the shape of a lesson. A few of the plainer people 
had made up a little sum by which the ragged 
Mliss was enabled to assume the garments of re- 
spect and civilization ; and often a rough shake of 
the hand, and words of homely commendation from 
a red-shirted and burly figure, sent a glow to the 
cheek of the young master, and set him to think- 
ing if it was altogether deserved. 

Three months had passed from the time of their 
first meeting, and the master was sitting late one 
evening over the moral and sententious copies, 
when there came a tap at the door, and again Mliss 
stood before him. She was neatly clad and clean- 
faced, and there was nothing perhaps but the long 
black hair and bright black eyes to remind him of 
his former apparition. “Are you busy?” she 
asked. “ Can you come with me?” — and on his 
signifying his readiness, in her old wilful way she 
said, “ Come, then, quick !” 


MLISS. 


151 


They passed out of the door together and into 
the dark road. As they entered the town the 
master asked her whither she was going. She re- 
plied, “ To see my father.” 

It was the first time he had heard her call him 
by that filial title, or indeed anything more than 
“ Old Smith ” or the “ Old Man.” It was the first 
time in three months that she had spoken of him 
at all, and the master knew she had kept res- 
olutely aloof from him since her great change. 
Satisfied from her manner that it was fruitless to 
question her purpose, he passively followed. In 
out-of-the-way places, low groggeries, restaurants, 
and saloons; in gambling-hells and dance-houses, 
the master, preceded by Mliss, came and went. In 
the reeking smoke and blasphemous outcries of 
low dens, the child, holding the master’s hand, 
stood and anxiously gazed, seemingly unconscious 
of all in the one absorbing nature of her pursuit. 
Some of the revellers, recognizing Mliss, called to 
the child to sing and dance for them, and would 
have forced liquor upon her but for the interfer- 
ence of the master. Others, recognizing him mute- 
ly, made way for them to pass. So an hour slipped 
by. Then the child whispered in his ear that there 
was a cabin on the other side of the creek crossed 
by the long flume, where she thought he still might 
be. Thither they crossed, — a toilsome half-hour’s 
walk, — but in vain. They were returning by the 


152 


MLISS. 


ditch at the abutment of the flume, gazing at the* 
lights of the town on the opposite bank, when, 
suddenly, sharply, a quick report rang out on the 
clear night air. The echoes caught it, and carried 
it round and round Red Mountain, and set the dogs 
to barking all along the streams. Lights seemed 
to dance and move quickly on the outskirts of the 
town for a few moments, the stream rippled quite 
audibly beside them, a few stones loosened them- 
selves from the hillside and splashed into the 
stream, a heavy wind seemed to surge the branches 
of the funereal pines, and then the silence seemed 
to fall thicker, heavier, and deadlier. The master 
turned towards Mliss with an unconscious gesture 
of protection, but the child had gone. Oppressed 
by a strange fear, he ran quickly down the trail to 
the river’s bed, and, jumping from boulder to boul- 
der, reached the base of Red Mountain and the 
outskirts of the village. Midway of the crossing 
he looked up and held his breath in awe. For 
high above him on the narrow flume he saw the 
fluttering little figure of his late companion cross- 
ing swiftly in the darkness. 

He climbed the bank, and, guided by a few lights 
moving about a central point on the mountain, 
soon found himself breathless among a crowd of 
awe-stricken and sorrowful men. Out from amoner 
them the child appeared, and, taking the master’s 
hand, led him silently before what seemed a ragged 


MLISS. 


153 


hole in the mountain. Her face was quite white, 
but her excited manner gone, and her look that of 
one to whom some long-expected event had at last 
happened, — an expression that to the master in 
his bewilderment seemed almost like relief. The 
walls of the cavern were partly propped by decay- 
ing timbers. The child pointed to what appeared 
to be some ragged, cast-off clothes left in the hole 
by the late occupant. The master approached 
nearer with his flaming dip, and bent over them. 
It was Smith, already cold, with a pistol in his 
hand and a bullet in his heart, lying beside his 
empty pocket. 


CHAPTER II. 

The opinion which McSnagley expressed in 
reference to a “ change of heart ” supposed to 
be experienced by Mliss was more forcibly de- 
scribed in the gulches and tunnels. It was 
thought there that Mliss had “ struck a good 
lead.” So when there was a new grave added to 
the little enclosure, and at the expense of the 
master a little board and inscription put above it, 
the Red Mountain Banner came out quite hand- 
somely, and did the fair thing to the memory of 
one of “ our oldest Pioneers,” alluding gracefully 
7 * 


154 


MLISS. 


to that “ bane of noble intellects,” and otherwise 
genteelly shelving our dear brother with the past. 
“ He leaves an only child to mourn his loss,” says 
the Banner, “who is now an exemplary scholar, 
thanks to the efforts of the Bev. Mr. McSnagley.” 
The Bev. McSnagley, in fact, made a strong point 
of Mliss’s conversion, and, indirectly attributing to 
the unfortunate child the suicide of her father, 
made affecting allusions in Sunday school to the 
beneficial effects of the “ silent tomb,” and in this 
cheerful contemplation drove most of the children 
into speechless horror, and caused the pink-and- 
white scions of the first families to howl dismally 
and refuse to be comforted. 

The long dry summer came. As each fierce day 
burned itself out in little whiffs of pearl-gray 
smoke on the mountain summits, and the up- 
springing breeze scattered its red embers over the 
landscape, the green wave which in early spring 
upheaved above Smith’s grave grew sere and dry 
and hard. In those days the master, strolling in 
the little churchyard of a Sabbath afternoon, was 
sometimes surprised to find a few wild-flowers 
plucked from the damp pine-forests scattered 
there, and oftener rude wreaths hung upon the 
little pine cross. Most of these wreaths were 
formed of a sweet-scented grass, which the chil- 
dren loved to keep in their desks, intertwined 
with the plumes of the buckeye, the syringa. 


MLISS. 


155 


and the wood-anemone ; and here and there the 
master noticed the dark blue cowl of the monk’s- 
hood, or deadly aconite. There was something 
in the odd association of this noxious plant with 
these memorials which occasioned a painful sensa- 
tion to the master deeper than his esthetic sense. 
One day, during a long walk, in crossing a wooded 
ridge he came upon Mliss in the heart of the for- 
est, perched upon a prostrate pine, on a fantastic 
throne formed by the hanging plumes of lifeless 
branches, her lap full of grasses and pine-burrs, 
and crooning to herself one of the negro melodies 
of her younger life. Recognizing him at a dis- 
tance, she made room for him on her elevated 
throne, and with a grave assumption of hospitality 
and patronage that would have been ridiculous 
had it not been so terribly earnest, she fed him 
with pine-nuts and crab-apples. The master took 
that opportunity to point out to her the noxious 
and deadly qualities of the monk’s-hood, whose 
dark blossoms he saw in her lap, and extorted 
from her a promise not to meddle with it as long 
as she remained his pupil. This done, — as the 
master had tested her integrity before, — he rested 
satisfied, and the strange feeling which had over- 
come him on seeing them died away. 

Of the homes that were offered Mliss when her 
conversion became known, the master preferred 
that of Mrs. Morpher, a womanly and kind-hearted 


156 


MLISS. 


specimen of Southwestern efflorescence, known in 
her maidenhood as the “ Per-rairie Rose.” Being 
one of those who contend resolutely against their 
own natures, Mrs. Morpher, by a long series of self- 
sacrifices and struggles, had at last subjugated her 
naturally careless disposition to principles of “ or- 
der,” which she considered, in common with Mr. 
Pope, as “ Heaven’s first law.” But she could not 
entirely govern the orbits of her satellites, however 
regular her own movements, and even her own 
“ Jeemes ” sometimes collided with her. Again 
her old nature asserted itself in her children. Ly- 
curgus dipped into the cupboard “ between meals,” 
and Aristides came home from school without 
shoes, leaving those important articles on the 
threshold, for the delight of a barefooted walk 
down the ditches. Octavia and Cassandra were 
“ keerless ” of their clothes. So with but one ex- 
ception, however much the “ Prairie Rose ” might 
have trimmed and pruned and trained her own 
matured luxuriance, the little shoots came up 
defiantly wild and straggling. . That one exception 
was Clytemnestra Morpher, aged fifteen. She was 
the realization of her mother’s immaculate con- 
ception, — neat, orderly, and dull. 

It was an amiable weakness of Mrs. Morpher 
to imagine that “ Clytie ” was a consolation and 
model for Mliss. Following this fallacy, Mrs. Mor- 
pher threw Clytie at the head of Mliss when she 


MLISS. 


157 


was “bad,” and set her up before the child for 
adoration in her penitential moments. It was not, 
therefore, surprising to the master to hear that 
Clytie was coming to school, obviously as a favor 
to the master and as an example for Mliss and 
others. For “Clytie” was quite a young lady. 
Inheriting her mother’s physical peculiarities, and 
in obedience to the climatic laws of the Eed 
Mountain region, she was an early bloomer. The 
youth of Smith’s Pocket, to whom this kind of 
flower was rare, sighed for her in April and lan- 
guished in May. Enamored swains haunted the 
school-house at the hour of dismissal. A few 
were jealous of the master. 

Perhaps it was this latter circumstance that 
opened the master’s eyes to another. He could 
not help noticing that Clytie was romantic ; that 
in school she required a great deal of attention ; 
that her pens were uniformly bad and wanted fix- 
ing ; that she usually accompanied the request 
with a certain expectation in her eye that was 
somewhat disproportionate to the quality of ser- 
vice she verbally required ; that she sometimes 
allowed the curves of a round, plump white arm 
to rest on his when he was writing her copies; 
that she always blushed and flung back her blond 
curls when she did so. I don’t remember whether 
I have stated that the master was a young man, — 
it ’s of little consequence, however ; he had been 


158 


MLISS. 


severely educated in the school in which Clytie 
was taking her first lesson, and, on the whole, 
withstood the flexible curves and factitious glance 
like the fine young Spartan that he was. Perhaps 
an insufficient quality of food may have tended to 
this asceticism. He generally avoided Clytie ; but 
one evening, when she returned to the school- 
house after something she had forgotten, and did 
not find it until the master walked home with 
her, I hear that he endeavored to make himself 
particularly agreeable, — partly from the fact, I 
imagine, that his conduct was adding gall and 
bitterness to the already overcharged hearts of 
Clytemnestra’s .admirers. 

The morning after this affecting episode Mliss 
did not come to school. Noon came, but not Mliss. 
Questioning Clytie on the subject, it appeared that 
they had left the school together, but the wilful 
Mliss had taken another road. The afternoon 
brought her not. In the evening he called on Mrs. 
Morpher, whose motherly heart was really alarmed. 
Mr. Morpher had spent all day in search of her, 
without discovering a trace that might lead to her 
discovery. Aristides was summoned as a probable 
accomplice, but that equitable infant succeeded 
in impressing the household with his innocence. 
Mrs. Morpher entertained a vivid impression that 
the child would yet be found drowned in a ditch, 
or, what was almost as terrible, muddied and soiled 


MLISS. 


159 


beyond the redemption of soap and water. Sick 
at heart, the master returned to the school-house. 
As he lit his lamp and seated himself at his desk, 
he found a note lying before him addressed to him- 
self, in Mliss’s handwriting. It seemed to be writ- 
ten on a leaf torn from some old memorandum- 
book, and, to prevent sacrilegious trifling, had been 
sealed with six broken wafers. Opening it almost 
tenderly, the master read as follows : — 

Respected Sir, ; — When you read this, I am run 
away. Never to come back. Never , Never, NEVER. 
You can give my beeds to Mary Jennings, and my 
Amerika’s Pride [a highly colored lithograph from a 
tobacco-box] to Sally Flanders. But don’t you give 
anything to Clytie Morpher. Don’t you dare to. Do 
you know what my oppinion is of her, it is this, she is 
perfekly disgustin. That is all and no more at pres- 
ent from 

Yours respectfully, 

Melissa Smith. 

The master sat pondering on this strange epistle 
till the moon lifted its bright face above the dis- 
tant hills, and illuminated the trail that led to the 
school-house, beaten quite hard with the coming 
and going of little feet. Then, more satisfied in 
mind, he tore the missive into fragments and scat- 
tered them along the road. 

At sunrise the next morning he was picking his 
way through the palm-like fern and thick under- 


164 


MLISS. 


never been known to apply to it any childish 
term of endearment. She never exhibited it in 
the presence of other children. It was put severely 
to bed in a hollow tree near the school-house, and 
only allowed exercise during Mliss’ s rambles. Ful- 
filling a stern duty to her doll, as she would to 
herself, it knew no luxuries. 

Now Mrs. Morpher, obeying a commendable 
impulse, bought another doll and gave it to Mliss. 
The child received it gravely and curiously. The 
master on looking at it one day fancied he saw a 
slight resemblance in its round red cheeks and 
mild blue eyes to Clytemnestra. It became evi- 
dent before long that Mliss had also noticed the 
same resemblance. Accordingly she hammered its 
waxen head on the rocks when she was alone, and 
sometimes dragged it with a string round its neck 
to and from school. At other times, setting it up 
on her desk, she made a pin-cushion of its patient 
and inoffensive body. Whether this was done in 
revenge of what she considered a second figura- 
tive obtrusion of Clytie’s excellences upon her, or 
whether she had an intuitive appreciation of the 
rites of certain other heathens, and, indulging in 
that “ Fetish” ceremony, imagined that the original 
of her wax model would pine away and finally die, is 
a metaphysical question I shall not now consider. 

In spite of these moral vagaries, the mastei 
could not help noticing in her different tasks the 


MLISS. 


165 


working of a quick, restless, and vigorous percep- 
tion. She knew neither the hesitancy nor the 
doubts of childhood. Her answers in class were 
always slightly dashed with audacity. Of course 
she was not infallible. But her courage and dar- 
ing in passing beyond her own depth and that 
of the floundering little swimmers around her, in 
their minds outweighed all errors of judgment. 
Children are not better than grown people in this 
respect, I fancy ; and whenever the little red hand 
flashed above her desk, there was a wondering 
silence, and even the master was sometimes op- 
pressed with a doubt of his own experience and 
judgment. „ 

Nevertheless, certain attributes which at first 
amused and entertained his fancy began to afflict 
him with grave doubts. He could not but see that 
Mliss was revengeful, irreverent, and wilful. That 
there was but one better quality which pertained 
to her semi-savage disposition, — the faculty of 
physical fortitude and self-sacrifice, and another, 
though not always an attribute of the noble savage, 
— Truth. Mliss was both fearless and sincere ; 
perhaps in such a character the adjectives were 
synonymous. 

The master had been doing some hard thinking 
on this subject, and had arrived at that conclusion 
quite common to all who think sincerely, that he 
was generally the slave of his own prejudices. 


166 


MLISS. 


when he determined to call on the Rev. Mo 
Snagley for advice. This decision was somewhat 
humiliating to his pride, as he and McSnagley were 
not friends. But he thought of Mliss, and the 
evening of their first meeting ; and perhaps with 
a pardonable superstition that it was not chance 
alone that had guided her wilful feet to the school- 
house, and perhaps with a complacent conscious- 
ness of the rare magnanimity of the act, he choked 
back his dislike and went to McSnagley. 

The reverend gentleman was glad to see him. 
Moreover, he observed that the master was looking 
“ peartish,” and hoped he had got over the “ neu- 
ralgy ” and “ rheumatiz.” He himself had been 
troubled with a dumb “ ager ” since last conference. 
But he had learned to “ rastle and pray.” 

Pausing a moment to enable the master to write 
his certain method of curing the dumb “ager” 
upon the book and volume of his brain, Mr. Mc- 
Snagley proceeded to inquire after Sister Morpher. 
“ She is an adornment to Christianity, and has a 
likely growin’ young family,” added Mr. McSnag- 
ley ; “ and there ’s that mannerly young gal, — so 
well behaved, — Miss Clytie.” In fact, Clytie’s 
perfections seemed to affect him to such an extent 
that he dwelt for several minutes upon them. The 
master was doubly embarrassed. In the first place, 
there was an enforced contrast with poor Mliss 
in all this praise of Clytie. Secondly, there was 


MLISS. 


167 


something unpleasantly confidential in his tone of 
speaking of Mrs. Morpher’s earliest born. So that 
the master, after a few futile efforts to say some- 
thing natural, found it convenient to recall an- 
other engagement, and left without asking the 
information required, hut in his after reflections 
somewhat unjustly giving the Eev. Mr. McSnag- 
ley the full benefit of having refused it. 

Perhaps this rebuff placed the master and pupil 
once more in the close communion of old. The 
child seemed to notice the change in the master’s 
manner, which had of late been constrained, and in 
one of their long post-prandial walks she stopped 
suddenly, and, mounting a stump, looked full in 
his face with big, searching eyes. "You ain’t mad ?” 
said she, with an interrogative shake of the black 
braids. "No.” " Nor bothered ? ” "No.” "Nor 

hungry ? ” (Hunger was to Mliss a sickness that 
might attack a person at any moment.) "No.” 
"Nor thinking of her?” "Of whom, Lissy?” 

" That white girl.” (This was the latest epithet 
invented by Mliss, who was a very dark brunette, 
to express Clytemnestra.) " No.” " Upon your 
word ? ” (A substitute for " Hope you ’ll die ! ” 
proposed by the master.) " Yes.” " And sacred 
honor?” "Yes.” Then Mliss gave him a fierce^ 
little kiss, and, hopping down, fluttered off. For 
two or three days after that she condescended to 
appear more like other children, and be, as she 
expressed it, "good.” 


168 


MLISS. 


Two years had passed since the master’s advent 
at Smith’s Pocket, and as his salary was not large, 
.and the prospects of Smith’s Pocket eventually be- 
coming the capital of the State not entirely defi- 
nite, he contemplated a change. He had informed 
the school trustees privately of his intentions, but, 
educated young men of unblemished moral charac- 
ter being scarce at that time, he consented to con- 
tinue his school term through the winter to early 
spring. None else knew of his intention except 
his one friend, a Dr. Duchesne, a young Creole 
physician known to the people of Wingdam as 
“ Duchesny.” He never mentioned it to Mrs. Mor- 
pher, Clytie, or any of his scholars. His reticence 
was partly the result of a constitutional indisposi- 
tion to fuss, partly a desire to be spared the ques- 
tions and surmises of vulgar curiosity, and partly 
that he never really believed he was going to do 
anything before it was done. 

He did not like to think of Mliss. It was a 
selfish instinct, perhaps, which made him try to 
fancy his feeling for the child was foolish, roman- 
tic, and unpractical. He even tried to imagine 
that she would do better under the control of an 
older and sterner teacher. Then she was nearly 
eleven, and in a few years, by the rules of Red 
Mountain, would be a woman. He had done his 
duty. After Smith’s death he addressed letters to 
Smith’s relatives, and received one answer from a 


MLISS. 


169 


sister of Melissa’s mother. Thanking the master, 
she stated her intention of leaving the Atlantic 
States for California with her husband in a few 
months. This was a slight superstructure for the 
airy castle which the master pictured for Mliss’s 
home, but it was easy to fancy that some loving, 
sympathetic woman, with the claims of kindred, 
might better guide her wayward nature. Yet, when 
the master had read the letter, Mliss listened to it 
carelessly, received it submissively, and afterwards 
cut figures out of it with her scissors, supposed to 
represent Clytemnestra, labelled “ the white girl,” 
to prevent mistakes, and impaled them upon the 
outer walls of the school-house. 

When the summer was about spent, and the 
last harvest had been gathered in the valleys, the 
master bethought him of gathering in a few ri- 
pened shoots of the young idea, and of having his 
Harvest-Home, or Examination. So the savans 
and professionals of Smith’s Pocket were gathered 
to witness that time-honored custom of placing 
timid children in a constrained position, and bully- 
ing them as in a witness-box. As usual in such 
cases, the most audacious and self-possessed were 
the lucky recipients of the honors. The reader 
will imagine that in the present instance Mliss 
and Clytie were pre-eminent, and divided public 
attention ; Mliss with her clearness of material 
perception and self-reliance, Clytie with her placid 
8 


170 


MLISS. 


self-esteem and saint-like correctness of deport- 
ment. The other little ones were timid and blun- 
dering. Mliss’s readiness and brilliancy, of course, 
captivated the greatest number and provoked the 
greatest applause. Mliss’s antecedents had uncon- 
sciously awakened the strongest sympathies of a 
class whose athletic forms were ranged against the 
walls, or whose handsome bearded faces looked in 
at the windows. But Mliss’s popularity was over- 
thrown by an unexpected circumstance. 

McSnagley had invited himself, and had been 
going through the pleasing entertainment of fright- 
ening the more timid pupils by the vaguest and most 
ambiguous questions delivered in an impressive fu- 
nereal tone ; and Mliss had soared into Astronomy, 
and was tracking the course of our spotted ball 
through space, and keeping time with the music of 
the spheres, and defining the tethered orbits of 
the planets, when McSnagley impressively arose. 
“ Meelissy ! ye were speaking of the revolutions 
of this yere yearth and the mo ve-ments of the sun, 
and I think ye said it had been a doing of it since 
the creashun, eh ? ” Mliss nodded a scornful affirm- 
ative. “ Well, war that the truth ? ” said McSnag- 
ley, folding his arms. “ Yes,” said Mliss, shutting 
up her little red lips tightly. The handsome out- 
lines at the windows peered further in the school- 
room, and a saintly Baphael-face, with blond beard 
and soft blue eyes, belonging to the biggest scamp 


MLISS. 


171 


in the diggings, turned toward the child and whis- 
pered, “ Stick to it, Mliss ! ” The reverend gentle- 
man heaved a deep sigh, and cast a compassionate 
glance at the master, then at the children, and 
then rested his look on Clytie. That young woman 
softly elevated her round, white arm. Its seduc- 
tive curves were enhanced by a gorgeous and mas- 
sive specimen bracelet, the gift of one of her hum- 
blest worshippers, worn in honor of the occasion. 
There was a momentary silence. Clytie’s round 
cheeks were very pink and soft. Clytie’s big eyes 
were very bright and blue. Clytie’s low-necked 
white book-muslin rested softly on Clytie’s white, 
plump shoulders. Clytie looked at the master, and 
the master nodded. Then Clytie spoke softly : — 

“ Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and 
it obeyed him ! ” There was a low hum of ap- 
plause in the school-room, a triumphant expression 
on McSnagley’s face, a grave shadow on the mas- 
ter’s, and a comical look of disappointment re- 
flected from the windows. Mliss skimmed rapidly 
over her Astronomy, and then shut the book with 
a loud snap. A groan burst from McSnagley, an 
expression of astonishment from the school-room, 
a yell from the windows, as Mliss brought her red 
fist down on the desk, with the emphatic decla- 
ration, — 

“ It ’s a d — n lie. I don’t believe it ! ” 


' 


X 72 


MLISS. 


CHAPTER IV. 

The long wet season had drawn near its close. 
Signs of spring were visible in the swelling buds 
and rushing torrents. The pine-forests exhaled 
the fresher spicery. The azaleas were already bud- 
ding, the Ceanothus getting ready its lilac livery 
for spring. On the green upland which climbed 
Red Mountain at its southern aspect the long 
spike of the monk’s-hood shot up from its broad- 
leaved stool, and once more shook its dark-blue 
bells. Again the billow above Smith’s grave was 
soft and green, its crest just tossed with the foam 
of daisies and buttercups. The little graveyard 
had gathered a few new dwellers in the past year, 
and the mounds were placed two by two by the 
little paling until they reached Smith’s grave, and 
there there was but one. General superstition 
had shunned it, and the plot beside Smith was 
vacant. 

There had been several placards posted about 
the town, intimating that, at a certain period, a 
celebrated dramatic company would perform, for 
a few days, a series of "side-splitting” and 
“ screaming farces ” ; that, alternating pleasantly 
with this, there would be some melodrama and a 
grand divertisement, which would include singing, 


MLISS. 


173 


dancing, etc. These announcements occasioned a 
great fluttering among the little folk, and were 
the theme of much excitement and great specu- 
lation among the master’s scholars. The master 
had promised Mliss, to whom this sort of thing 
was sacred and rare, that she should go, and on 
that momentous evening the master and Mliss 
" assisted.” 

The performance was the prevalent style of 
heavy mediocrity; the melodrama was not had 
enough to laugh at nor good enough to excite. 
But the master, turning wearily to the child, was 
astonished, and felt something like self-accusation 
in noticing the peculiar effect upon her excitable 
nature. The red blood flushed in her cheeks at 
each stroke of her panting little heart. Her small 
passionate lips were slightly parted to give vent 
to her hurried breath. Her widely opened lids 
threw up and arched her black eyebrows. She did 
not laugh at the dismal comicalities of the funny 
man, for Mliss seldom laughed. Nor was she dis- 
creetly affected to the delicate extremes of the 
corner of a white handkerchief, as was the tender- 
hearted “ Clytie,” who was talking with her “feller ” 
and ogling the master at the same moment. But 
when the performance was over, and the green 
curtain fell on the little stage, Mliss drew a long 
deep breath, and turned to the master’s grave face 
with a half-apologetic smile and wearied gesture. 


174 


MLISS. 


Then she said, “ Now take me home !” and dropped 
the lids of her black eyes, as if to dwell once more 
in fancy on the mimic stage. 

On their way to Mrs. Morpher’s the master 
thought proper to ridicule the whole performance. 
Now he should n’t wonder if Mliss thought that 
the young lady who acted so beautifully was 
really in earnest, and in love with the gentleman 
who wore such fine clothes. Well, if she were in 
love with him it was a very unfortunate thing ! 
“ Why ? ” said Mliss, with an upward sweep of the 
drooping lid. “ Oh ! well, he could n’t support his 
wife at his present salary, and pay so much a week 
for his fine clothes, and then they would n’t re- 
ceive as much wages if they were married as if 
they were merely lovers, — that is,” added the 
master, “ if they are not already married to some- 
body else ; but I think the husband of the pretty 
young countess takes the tickets at the door, or 
pulls up the curtain, or snuffs the candles, or does 
something equally refined and elegant. As to the 
young man with nice clothes, which are really nice 
now, and must cost at least two and a half or 
three dollars, not to speak of that mantle of 
red drugget which I happen to know the price of, 
for I bought some of it for my room once, — as to 
this young man, Lissy, he is a pretty good fellow, 
and if he does drink occasionally, I don’t think 
people ought to take advantage of it and give him 


MLISS. 


175 


black eyes and throw him in the mnd. Do yon ? 
I am sure he might owe me two dollars and a half 
a long time, before I would throw it up in his face, 
as the fellow did the other night at Wingdam.” 

Mliss had taken his hand in both of hers and 
was trying to look in his eyes, which the young 
man kept as resolutely averted. Mliss had a 
faint idea of irony, indulging herself sometimes in 
a species of sardonic humor, which was equally 
visible in her actions and her speech. But the 
young man continued in this strain until they had 
reached Mrs. Morpher’s, and he had deposited 
Mliss in her maternal charge. Waiving the invi- 
tation of Mrs. Morpher to refreshment and rest, and 
shading his eyes with his hand to keep out the 
blue-eyed Clytemnestra’s siren glances, he excused 
himself, and went home. 

Bor two or three days after the advent of the 
dramatic company, Mliss was late at school, and 
the master’s usual Friday afternoon ramble was 
for once omitted, owing to the absence of his 
trustworthy guide. As he was putting away his 
books and preparing to leave the school-house, a 
small voice piped at his side, “ Please, sir ? ” The 
master turned and there stood Aristides Morpher. 

“ Well, my little man,” said the master, impa- 
tiently, "what is it? quick!” 

“ Please, sir, me and ‘ Kerg ’ thinks that Mliss 
is going to run away agin.” 


176 


MLISS. 


“ What ’s that, sir ? ” said the master, with that 
unjust testiness with which we always receive dis- 
agreeable news. 

“ Why, sir, she don’t stay home any more, and 
' Kerg ’ and me see her talking with one of those 
actor fellers, and she ’s with him now ; and please, 
sir, yesterday she told ‘Kerg’ and me she could 
make a speech as well as Miss Cellerstina Mont- 
moressy, and she spouted right off by heart,” and 
the little fellow paused in a collapsed condition. 

“ What actor ? ” asked the master. * 

“ Him as wears the shiny hat. And hair. And 
gold pin. And gold chain,” said the just Aristides, 
putting periods for commas to eke out his breath. 

The master put on his gloves and hat, feeling an 
unpleasant tightness in his chest and thorax, and 
walked out in the road. Aristides trotted along 
by his side, endeavoring to keep pace with his 
short legs to the master’s strides, when the master 
stopped suddenly, and Aristides bumped up against 
him. “ Where were they talking ? ” asked the mas- 
ter, as if continuing the conversation. 

“ At the Arcade,” said Aristides. 

When they reached the main street the master 
paused. “ Kun down home,” said he to the boy. 
“ If Mliss is there, come to the Arcade and tell me. 
If she is n’t there, stay home ; run ! ” And off 
trotted the short-legged Aristides. 

The Arcade was just across the way, — a long, 


MLISS. 


177 


rambling building containing a bar-room, billiard- 
room, and restaurant. As the young man crossed 
the plaza he noticed that two or three of the passers- 
by turned and looked after him. He looked at his 
clothes, took out his handkerchief and wiped his 
face, before he entered the bar-room. It contained 
the usual number of loungers, who stared at him as 
he entered. One of them looked at him so fixedly 
and with such a strange expression that the master 
stopped and looked again, and then saw it was only 
his own reflection in a large mirror. This made the 
master think that perhaps he was a little excited, 
and so he took up a copy of the Red Mountain 
Banner from one of the tables, and tried to recover 
his composure by reading the column of advertise- 
ments. 

He then walked through the bar-room, through 
the restaurant, and into the billiard-room. The 
child was not there. In the latter apartment a 
person was standing by one of the tables with a 
broad-brimmed glazed hat on his head. The mas- 
ter recognized him as the agent of the dramatic 
company ; he had taken a dislike to him at their 
first meeting, from the peculiar fashion of wearing 
his beard and hair. Satisfied that the object of his 
search was not there, he turned to the man with a 
glazed hat. He had noticed the master, but tried 
that common trick of unconsciousness, in which 
vulgar natures always fail. Balancing a billiard- 

8* L 


178 


MUSS. 


cue in liis hand, he pretended to play with a ball 
in the centre of the table. The master stood op- 
posite to him until he raised his eyes ; when their 
glances met, the master walked up to him. 

He had intended to avoid a scene or quarrel, but 
when he began to speak, something kept rising in 
his throat and retarded his utterance, and his own 
voice frightened him, it sounded so distant, low, 
and resonant. “ I understand,” he began, “ that 
Melissa Smith, an orphan, and one of my scholars, 
has talked with you about adopting your profes- 
sion. Is that so ? ” 

The man with the glazed hat leaned over the 
table, and made an imaginary shot, that sent the 
ball spinning round the cushions. Then walking 
round the table he recovered the ball and placed 
it upon the spot. This duty discharged, getting 
ready for another shot, he said, — 

“ S’pose she has ? ” 

The master choked up again, but, squeezing the 
cushion of the table in his gloved hand, he went 
on : — - 

“ If you are a gentleman, I have only to tell you 
that I am her guardian, and responsible for her ca- 
reer. You know as well as I do the kind of life 
you offer her. As you may learn of any one here, 
I have already brought her out of an existence 
worse than death, — out of the streets and the con- 
tamination of vice. I am trying to do so again. 


MLISS. 


179 


Let us talk like men. She has neither father, 
mother, sister, or brother. Are you seeking to give 
her an equivalent for these ? ” 

The man with the glazed hat examined the point 
of his cue, and then looked around for somebody 
to enjoy the joke with him. 

I know that she is a strange, wilful girl,” con- 
tinued the master, “ but she is better than she was. 
I believe that I have some influence over her still. 
I beg and hope, therefore, that you will take no 
further steps in this matter, but as a man, as a gen- 
tleman, leave her to me. I am willing — ” But 
here something rose again in the master’s throat, 
and the sentence remained unfinished. 

The man with the glazed hat, mistaking the 
master’s silence, raised his head with a coarse, 
brutal laugh, and said in a loud voice, — 

“ Want her yourself, do you ? That cock won’t 
fight here, young man ! ” 

The insult was more in the tone than the words, 
more in the glance than tone, and more in the 
man’s instinctive nature than all these. The 
best appreciable rhetoric to this kind of animal is 
a blow. The master felt this, and, with his pent- 
up, nervous energy finding expression in the one 
act, he struck the brute full in his grinning face. 
The blow sent the glazed hat one way and the cue 
another, and tore the glove and skin from the 
master’s hand from knuckle to joint. It opened 


180 


MLISS. 


up the corners of the fellow’s mouth, and spoilt 
the peculiar shape of his beard for some time to 
come. 

There was a shout, an imprecation, a scuffle, and 
the trampling of many feet. Then the crowd 
parted right and left, and two sharp quick reports 
followed each other in rapid succession. Then 
they closed again about his opponent, and the mas- 
ter was standing alone. He remembered picking 
bits of burning wadding from his coat-sleeve with 
his left hand. Some one was holding his other 
hand. Looking at it, he saw it was still bleeding 
from the blow, but his fingers were clenched 
around the handle of a glittering knife. He could 
not remember when or how he got it. 

The man who was holding his hand was Mr. 
Morpher. He hurried the master to the door, but 
the master held back, and tried to tell him as well 
as he could with his parched throat about “ Mliss.” 
“ It ’s all right, my boy,” said Mr. Morpher. “ She ’s 
home ! ” And they passed out into the street to- 
gether. As they walked along Mr. Morpher said 
that Mliss had come running into the house a few 
moments before, and had dragged him out, saying 
that somebody was trying to kill the master at the 
Arcade. Wishing to be alone, the master prom- 
ised Mr. Morpher that he would not seek the Agent 
again that night, and parted from him, taking the 
road toward the school-house. He was surprised 


MLISS. 


181 


in nearing it to find the door open, — still more 
surprised to find Mliss sitting there. 

The master’s nature, as I have hinted before, 
had, like most sensitive organizations, a selfish 
basis. The brutal taunt thrown out by his late 
adversary still rankled in his heart. It was pos- 
sible, he thought, that such a construction might 
be put upon his affection for the child, which 
at best was foolish and Quixotic. Besides, had; 
she not voluntarily abnegated his authority and 
affection ? And what had everybody else said 
about her ? Why should he alone combat the 
opinion of all, and be at last obliged tacitly to 
confess the truth of all they had predicted ? And 
he had been a participant in a low bar-room fight 
with a common boor, and risked his life, to prove 
what ? What had he proved ? Nothing ? What 
would the people say ? What would his friends 
say ? What would McSnagley say ? 

In his self-accusation the last person he should 
have wished to meet was Mliss. He entered the 
door, and, going up to his desk, told the child, in a 
few cold words, that he was busy, and wished to 
be alone. As she rose he took her vacant seat, and, 
sitting down, buried his head in his hands. When 
he looked up again she was still standing there. 
She was looking at his face with an anxious ex- 
pression. 

“ Did you kill him ? ” she asked. 


182 


MLISS. 


“No !” said the master. 

“ That ’s what I gave you the knife for ! ” said 
the child, quickly. 

“ Gave me the knife ? ” repeated the master, in 
bewilderment. 

“ Yes, gave you the knife. I was there under the 
bar. Saw you hit him. Saw you both fall. He 
dropped his old knife. I gave it to you. Why 
did n’t you stick him ? ” said Mliss rapidly, with an 
expressive twinkle of the black eyes and a gesture 
of the little red hand. 

The master could only look his astonishment. 

“ Yes,” said Mliss. “ If you ’d asked me, I ’d 
told you I was off with the play-actors. Why 
was I off with the play-actors ? Because you 
would n’t tell me you was going away. I knew 
it. I heard you tell the Doctor so. I was n’t 
a goin’ to stay here alone with those Morphers. 
I ’d rather die first.” 

With a dramatic gesture which was perfectly 
consistent with her character, she drew from her 
bosom a few limp green leaves, and, holding them 
out at arm’s-length, said in her quick vivid way, 
and in the queer pronunciation of her old life, 
which she fell into when unduly excited, — 

“That’s the poison plant you said would kill 
me. I ’ll go with the play-actors, or I ’ll eat this 
and die here. I don’t care which. I won’t stay 
here, where they hate and despise me ! Neither 


MLISS. 


183 


would you let me, if you did n’t hate and despise 
me too ! ” 

The passionate little breast heaved, and two big 
tears peeped over the edge of Mliss’s eyelids, but 
she whisked them away with the corner of her 
apron as if they had been wasps. 

“ If you lock me up in jail,” said Mliss, fiercely, 
“ to keep me from the play-actors, I ’ll poison 
myself. Father killed himself, — why should n’t 
I ? You said a mouthful of that root would kill 
me, and I always carry it here,” and she struck 
her breast with her clenched fist. 

The master thought of the vacant plot beside 
Smith’s grave, and of the passionate little figure 
before him. Seizing her hands in his and looking 
full into her truthful eyes, he said, — 

“ Lissy, will you go with me ? ” 

The child put her arms around his neck, and 
said joyfully, “Yes.” 

“ But now — to-night ? ” 

“ To-night.” 

And, hand in hand, they passed into the road, 
— the narrow road that had once brought her 
weary feet to the master’s door, and which it 
seemed she should not tread again alone. The 
stars glittered brightly above them. For good or 
ill the lesson had been learned, and behind them 
the school of Bed Mountain closed upon them for- 


ever. 


THE EIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER 


HE year of grace 1797 passed away on the 



-JL coast of California in a southwesterly gale. 
The little bay of San Carlos, albeit sheltered by 
the headlands of the blessed Trinity, was rough 
and turbulent; its foam clung quivering to the 
seaward wall of the Mission garden ; the air 
was filled with flying sand and spume, and as 
the Senor Comandante, Hermenegildo Salvatierra, 
looked from the deep embrasured window of the 
Presidio guard-room, he felt the salt breath of the 
distant sea buffet a color into his smoke-dried 
cheeks. 

The Commander, I have said, was gazing thought- 
fully from the window of the guard-room. He 
may have been reviewing the events of the year 
now about to pass away. But, like the garri- 
son at the Presidio, there was little to review ; 
the year, like its predecessors, had been unevent- 
ful, — the days had slipped by in a delicious mo- 
notony of simple duties, unbroken by incident 
or interruption. The regularly recurring feasts 
and saints’ days, the half-yearly courier from San 
Diego, the rare transport-ship and rarer foreign 


THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 185 

vessel, were the mere details of his patriarchal 
life. If there was no achievement, there was cer- 
tainly no failure. Abundant harvests and patient 
industry amply supplied the wants of Presidio and 
Mission. Isolated from the family of nations, the 
wars which shook the w T orld concerned them not 
so much as the last earthquake ; the struggle that 
emancipated their sister colonies on the other side 
of the continent to them had no suggestiveness. 
In short, it was that glorious Indian summer of 
California history, around which so much poetical 
haze still lingers, — that bland, indolent autumn 
of Spanish rule, so soon to be followed by the 
wintry storms of Mexican independence and the 
reviving spring of American conquest. 

The Commander turned from the window and 
walked toward the fire that burned brightly on 
the deep oven-like hearth. A pile of copy-books, 
the work of the Presidio school, lay on the table. 
As he turned over the leaves with a paternal 
interest, and surveyed the fair round Scripture 
text, — the first pious pot-hooks of the pupils of 
San Carlos, — an audible commentary fell from 
his lips : “ ' Abimelech took her from Abraham * 
ah, little one, excellent! — ‘Jacob sent to see his 
brother ’ — body of Christ ! that up-stroke of 
thine, Paquita, is marvellous ; the Governor shall 
see it ! ” A film of honest pride dimmed the Com- 
mander’s left eye, — the right, alas! twenty years 


186 THE EIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 

before bad been sealed by an Indian arrow. He 
rubbed it softly with the sleeve of his leather 
jacket, and continued : “ f The Ishmaelites having 
arrived — ’ ” 

He stopped, for there was a step in the court- 
yard, a foot upon the threshold, and a stranger 
entered. With the instinct of an old soldier, 
the Commander, after one glance at the intruder, 
turned quickly toward the wall, where his trusty 
Toledo hung, or should have been hanging. But 
it w^as not there, and as he recalled that the last 
time he had seen that weapon it was being ridden 
up and down the gallery by Pepito, the infant son 
of Bautista, the tortilio-maker, he blushed and 
then contented himself with frowning upon the 
intruder. 

But the stranger’s air, though irreverent, was 
decidedly peaceful. He was unarmed, and wore 
the ordinary cape of tarpauling and sea-boots of a 
mariner. Except a villanous smell of codfish, 
there was little about him that was peculiar. 

His name, as he informed the Commander, in 
Spanish that was more fluent than elegant or pre- 
cise, — his name was Peleg Scudder. He was mas- 
ter of the schooner “ General Court,” of the port 
of Salem, in Massachusetts, on a trading-voyage 
to the South Seas, but now driven by stress of 
weather into the bay of San Carlos. He begged 
permission to ride out the gale under the head- 


THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 187 


lands of the blessed Trinity, and no more. Water 
he did not need, having taken in a supply at 
Bodega. He knew the strict surveillance of the 
Spanish port regulations in regard to foreign ves- 
sels, and would do nothing against the severe dis- 
cipline and good order of the settlement. There 
was a slight tinge of sarcasm in his tone as he 
glanced toward the desolate parade-ground of the 
Presidio and the open unguarded gate. The fact 
was that the sentry, Felipe Gomez, had discreetly 
retired to shelter at the beginning of the storm, 
and was then sound asleep in the corridor. 

The Commander hesitated. The port regulations 
were severe, but he was accustomed to exercise 
individual authority, and beyond an old order 
issued ten years before, regarding the American 
ship “ Columbia,” there was no precedent to guide 
him. The storm was severe, and a sentiment of 
humanity urged him to grant the stranger’s request. 
It is but just to the Commander to say, that his 
inability to enforce a refusal did not weigh with 
his decision. He would have denied with equal 
disregard of consequences that right to a seventy- 
four gun ship which he now yielded so gracefully 
to this Yankee trading-schooner. He stipulated 
only, that there should be no communication 
between the ship and shore. “For yourself, 
Senor Captain,” he continued, “ accept my hospi- 
tality. The fort is yours as long as you shall 


188 THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 

grace it with your distinguished presence”; and 
with old-fashioned courtesy, he made the semblance 
of withdrawing from the guard-room. 

Master Peleg Scudder smiled as he thought of 
the half-dismantled fort, the two mouldy brass 
cannon, cast in Manila a century previous, and the 
shiftless garrison. A wild thought of accepting 
the Commander’s offer literally, conceived in the 
reckless spirit of a man who never let slip an 
offer for trade, for a moment filled his brain, but a 
timely reflection of the commercial unimportance 
of the transaction checked him. He only took 
a capacious quid of tobacco, as the Commander 
gravely drew a settle before the fire, and in honor 
of his guest untied the black silk handkerchief that 
bound his grizzled brows. 

What passed between Salvatierra and his guest 
that night it becomes me not, as a grave chronicler 
of the salient points of history, to relate. I have 
said that Master Peleg Scudder was a fluent talker, 
and under the influence of divers strong waters, 
furnished by his host, he became still more loqua- 
cious. And think of a man with a twenty years’ 
budget of gossip ! The Commander learned, for 
the first time, how Great Britain lost her colonies ; 
of the French Ee volution ; of the great Napoleon, 
whose achievements, perhaps, Peleg colored more 
highly than the Commander’s superiors would have 
Eked. And when Peleg turned questioner, the 


THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 189 


Commander was at his mercy. He gradually made 
himself master of the gossip of the Mission and 
Presidio, the “ small-beer ” chronicles of that pas- 
toral age, the conversion of the heathen, the Pre- 
sidio schools, and even asked the Commander how 
he had lost his eye ! It is said that at this point 
of the conversation Master Peleg produced from 
about his person divers small trinkets, kick-shaws 
and new-fangled trifles, and even forced some of 
them upon his host. It is further alleged that 
under the malign influence of Peleg and several 
glasses of aguardiente , the Commander lost some- 
what of his decorum, and behaved in a manner 
unseemly for one in his position, reciting high- 
flov T n Spanish poetry, and even piping in a thin, 
high voice, divers madrigals and heathen canzonets 
of an amorous complexion ; chiefly in regard to a 
“ little one ” who was his, the Commander’s, “ soul ” ! 
These allegations, perhaps unworthy the notice of 
a serious chronicler, should he received with great 
caution, and are introduced here as simple hearsay. 
That the Commander, however, took a handkerchief 
and attempted to show his guest the mysteries of 
the sembi cuacua, capering in an agile hut in- 
decorous manner about the apartment, has been 
denied. Enough for the purposes of this narra- 
tive, that at midnight Peleg assisted his host to 
bed with many protestations of undying friend- 
ship, and then, as the gale had abated, took his 


190 THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 

leave of the Presidio and hurried aboard the 
“ General Court.” When the day broke the ship 
was gone. 

I know not if Peleg kept his word with his 
host. It is said that the holy fathers at the Mis- 
sion that night heard a loud chanting in the plaza, 
as of the heathens singing psalms through their 
noses ; that for many days after an odor of salt 
codfish prevailed in the settlement; that a dozen 
hard nutmegs, which were unfit for spice or seed, 
were found in the possession of the wife of the 
baker, and that several bushels of shoe-pegs, which 
bore a pleasing resemblance to oats, but were quite 
inadequate to the purposes of provender, were 
discovered in the stable of the blacksmith. But 
when the reader reflects upon the sacredness of a- 
Yankee trader’s word, the stringent discipline of 
the Spanish port regulations, and the proverbial 
indisposition of my countrymen to impose upon 
the confidence of a simple people, he will at once 
reject this part of the story. 

A roll of drums, u'shering in the year 1798, 
awoke the Commander. The sun was shining 
brightly, and the storm had ceased. He sat up in 
bed, and through the force of habit rubbed his left 
eye. As the remembrance of the previous night 
came back to him, he jumped from his couch and 
ran to the window. There was no ship in the 


THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 191 

bay. A sudden thpught seemed to strike him, and 
he rubbed both of his eyes. Not content with 
this, he consulted the metallic mirror which hung 
beside his crucifix. There was no mistake ; the 
Commander had a visible second eye, — a right 
one, — as good, save for the purposes of vision, as 
the left. 

Whatever might have been the true secret of this 
transformation, but one opinion prevailed at San 
Carlos. It was one of those rare miracles vouch- 
safed a pious Catholic community as an evidence 
to the heathen, through the intercession of the 
blessed San Carlos himself. That their beloved 
Commander, the temporal defender of the Faith, 
should be the recipient of this miraculous mani- 
festation was most fit and seemly. The Com- 
mander himself was reticent ; he could not tell a 
falsehood, — he dared not tell the truth. After all, 
if the good folk of San Carlos believed that the 
powers of his right eye were actually restored, 
was it wise and discreet for him to undeceive 
them ? For the first time in his life the Com- 
mander thought of policy, — for the first time he 
quoted that text which has been the lure of so 
many well-meaning but easy Christians, of being 
“all things to all men.” Infeliz Hermenegildo 
Salvatierra ! 

For by degrees an ominous whisper crept through 
the little settlement. The Eight Eye of the Com- 


192 THE EIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 

mander, although miraculous, seemed to exercise a 
baleful effect upon the beholder. No one could 
look at it without winking. It was cold, hard, 
relentless and unflinching. More than that, it 
seemed to be endowed with a dreadful prescience, 
— a faculty of seeing through and into the inarticu- 
late thoughts of those it looked upon. The sol- 
diers of the garrison obeyed the eye rather than 
the voice of their commander, and answered his 
glance rather than his lips in questioning. The 
servants could not evade the ever-watchful, hut 
cold attention that seemed to pursue them. The 
children of the Presidio School smirched their 
copy-hooks under the awful supervision, and poor 
Paquita, the prize pupil, failed utterly in that 
marvellous up-stroke when her patron stood beside 
her. Gradually distrust, suspicion, self-accusation, 
and timidity took the place of trust, confidence, 
♦ and security throughout San Carlos. Whenever the 
Eight .Eye of the Commander fell, a shadow fell 
with it. 

Nor was Salvatierra entirely free from the bale- 
ful influence of his miraculous acquisition. Un- 
conscious of its effect upon others, he only saw in 
their actions evidence of certain things that the 
crafty Peleg had hinted on that eventful New 
Year’s eve. His most trusty retainers stammered, 
blushed, and faltered before him. Self-accusations, 
confessions of minor faults and delinquencies, oi 


THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 193 


extravagant excuses and apologies met his mildest 
inquiries. The very children that he loved — his 
pet pupil, Paquita — seemed to he conscious of 
some hidden sin. The result of this constant ir- 
ritation showed itself more plainly. For the first 
half-year the Commander’s voice and eye were at 
variance. He was still kind, tender, and thought- 
ful in speech. Gradually, however, his voice took 
upon itself the hardness of his glance , and its 
sceptical, impassive quality, and as the year again 
neared its close it was plain that the Commander 
had fitted himself to the eye, and not the eye to 
the Commander. 

It may be surmised that these changes did not 
escape the watchful solicitude of the Fathers. In- 
deed, the few who were first to ascribe the right 
eye of Salvatierra to miraculous origin and the 
special grace of the blessed San Carlos, now talked 
openly of witchcraft and the agency of Luzbel, 
the evil one. It would have fared ill with Her- 
menegildo Salvatierra had he been aught but Com- 
mander or amenable to local authority. But the 
reverend father, Friar Manuel de Cortes, had no 
power over the political executive, and all attempts 
at spiritual advice failed signally. He retired baf- 
fled and confused from his first interview with the 
Commander, who seemed now to take a grim sat- 
isfaction in the fateful power of his glance. The 
holy father contradicted himself, exposed the fal- 

9 M 


194 THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 

lacies of his own arguments, and even, it is as- 
serted, committed himself to several undoubted 
heresies. When the Commander stood up at mass, 
if the officiating priest caught that sceptical and 
searching eye, the service was inevitably ruined. 
Even the power of the Holy Church seemed to he 
lost, and the last hold upon the affections of the 
people and the good order of the settlement de- 
parted from San Carlos. 

As the long dry summer passed, the low hills 
that surrounded the white walls of the Presidio 
grew more and more to resemble in hue the leath- 
ern jacket of the Commander, and Nature herself 
seemed to have borrowed his dry, hard glare. The 
earth was cracked and seamed with drought; a 
blight had fallen upon the orchards and vineyards, 
and the rain, long delayed and ardently prayed for, 
came not. The sky was as tearless as the right 
eye of the Commander. Murmurs of discontent, 
insubordination, and plotting among the Indians 
reached his ears ; he only set his teeth the more 
firmly, tightened the knot of his black silk hand- 
kerchief, and looked up his Toledo. 

The last day of the year 1798 found the Com- 
mander sitting, at the hour of evening prayers, 
alone in the guard-room. He no longer attended 
the services of the Holy Church, but crept away 
at such times to some solitary spot, where he spent 
the interval in silent meditation. The firelight 


THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 195 

played upon the low beams and rafters, but left 
the bowed figure of Salvatierra in darkness. Sit- 
ting thus, he felt a small hand touch his arm, and, 
looking down, saw the figure of Paquita, his little 
Indian pupil, at his knee. “ Ah, littlest of all,” 
said the Commander, with something of his old 
tenderness, lingering over the endearing diminu- 
tives of his native speech, — “sweet one, what 
doest thou here ? Art thou not afraid of him 
whom every one shuns and fears?” 

“ No,” said the little Indian, readily, “ not in the 
dark. I hear your voice, — the old voice ; I feel 
your touch, — the old touch ; but I see not your 
e}^e, Senor Comandante. That only I fear, — and 
that, 0 Senor, 0 my father,” said the child, lift- 
ing her little arms towards his, — “ that I know 
is not thine own ! ” 

The Commander shuddered and turned away. 
Then, recovering himself, he kissed Paquita grave- 
ly on the forehead and bade her retire. A few 
hours later, when silence had fallen upon the Pre- 
sidio, he sought his own couch and slept peace- 
fully. 

At about the middle watch of the night a 
dusky figure crept through the low embrasure of 
the Commander’s apartment. Other figures were 
flitting through the parade-ground, which the Com- 
mander might have seen had he not slept so quiet- 
ly. The intruder stepped noiselessly to the couch 


196 TII£ EIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 


and listened to the sleeper’s deep-drawn inspiration. 
Something glittered in the firelight as the savage 
lifted his arm ; another moment and the sore per- 
plexities of Hermenegildo Salvatierra would have 
been over, when suddenly the savage started ana 
fell back in a paroxysm of terror. The Com- 
mander slept peacefully, but his right eye, widely 
opened, fixed and unaltered, glared coldly on the 
would-be assassin. The man fell to the earth in a 
fit, and the noise awoke the sleeper. 

To rise to his feet, grasp his sword, and deal 
blows thick and fast upon the mutinous savages 
who now thronged the room, was the work of a mo- 
ment. Help opportunely arrived, and the undis- 
ciplined Indians were speedily driven beyond the 
walls, but in the scuffle the Commander received 
a blow upon his right eye, and, lifting his hand 
to that mysterious organ, it was gone. Never 
again was it found, and never again, for bale or 
bliss, did it adorn the right orbit of the Com- 
mander. 

With it passed away the spell that had fallen 
upon San Carlos. The rain returned to invigorate 
the languid soil, harmony was restored between 
priest and soldier, the green grass presently waved 
over the sere hillsides, the children flocked again 
to the side of their martial preceptor, a Te Deum 
was sung in the Mission Church, and pastoral con- 
tent once more smiled upon the gentle valleys of 


THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER. 197 

San Carlos. And far southward crept the “ General 
Court ” with its master, Peleg Scudder, trafficking in 
heads and peltries with the Indians, and offering 
glass eyes, wooden legs, and other Boston notions 
to the chiefs. 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


PART I. — IN THE FIELD. 

I T was near the close of an October day that I 
began to be disagreeably conscious of the Sac- 
ramento Valley. I bad been riding since sunrise, 
and my course through the depressing monotony 
of the long level landscape affected me more like 
a dull dyspeptic dream than a business journey, 
performed under that sincerest of natural phenom- 
ena, — a California sky. The recurring stretches of 
brown and baked fields, the gaping fissures in the 
dusty trail, the hard outline of the distant hills, 
and the herds of slowly moving cattle, seemed like 
features of some glittering stereoscopic picture that 
never changed. Active exercise might have re- 
moved this feeling, hut my horse by some subtle 
instinct had long since given up all ambitious 
effort, and had lapsed into a dogged trot. 

It was autumn, but not the season suggested to 
the Atlantic reader under that title. The sharply 
defined boundaries of the wet and dry seasons were 
prefigured in the clear outlines of the distant hills. 
In the dry atmosphere the decay of vegetation was 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


199 


too rapid tor tlie slow hectic which overtakes an 
Eastern landscape, or else Nature was too practical 
for such thin disguises. She merely turned the 
Hippocratic face to the spectator, with the old di- 
agnosis of Death in her sharp, contracted features. 

In the contemplation of such a prospect there 
was little to excite any hut a morbid fancy. There 
were no clouds in the flinty blue heavens, and the 
setting of the sun was accompanied with as little 
ostentation as was consistent with the dryly prac- 
tical atmosphere. Darkness soon followed, with a 
rising wind, which increased as the shadows deep- 
ened on the plain. The fringe of alder by the 
watercourse began to loom up as I urged my horse 
forward. A half-hour’s active spurring brought 
me to a corral, and a little beyond a house, so low 
and broad it seemed at first sight to be half buried 
in the earth. 

My second impression was that it had grown out 
of the soil, like some monstrous vegetable, its 
dreary proportions were so in keeping with the 
vast prospect. There were no recesses along its 
roughly boarded walls for vagrant and unprofit- 
able shadows to lurk in the daily sunshine. No 
projection for the wind by night to grow musical 
over, to wail, whistle, or whisper to ; only a long 
wooden shelf containing a chilly-looking tin basin, 
and a bar of soap. Its uncurtained windows were 
red with the sinking sun, as though bloodshot and 


200 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


inflamed from a too long nnlidded existence. The 
tracks of cattle led to its front door, firmly closed 
against the rattling wind. 

To avoid being confounded with this familiar 
element, I walked to the rear of the house, which 
was connected with a smaller building by a slight 
platform. A grizzled, hard-faced old man was 
standing there, and met my salutation with a look 
of inquiry, and, without speaking, led the way to 
the principal room. As I entered, four young men 
who were reclining by the fire, slightly altered 
their attitudes of perfect repose, but beyond that 
betrayed neither curiosity nor interest. A bound 
started from a dark corner with a growl, but was 
immediately kicked by the old man into obscurity, 
and silenced again. I can’t tell why, but I in- 
stantly received the impression that for a long time 
the group by the fire had not uttered a word or 
moved a muscle. Taking a seat, I briefly stated 
my business. 

Was a United States surveyor. Had come on 
account of the Espfritu Santo Rancho. Wanted 
to correct the exterior boundaries of township 
lines, so as to connect with the near exteriors of 
private grants. There had been some intervention 
to the old survey by a Mr. Tryan who had pre- 
empted adjacent — “ settled land warrants,” in- 
terrupted the old man. “ Ah, yes ! Land Warrants, 
— and then this was Mr. Tryan ? ” 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


201 


I had spoken mechanically, for I was preoccu- 
pied in connecting other public lines with private 
surveys, as I looked in his face. It was certainly 
a hard face, and reminded me of the singular effect 
of that mining operation known as “ ground slui- 
cing ” ; the harder lines of underlying character 
were exposed, and what were once plastic curves 
and soft outlines were obliterated by some power- 
ful agency. 

There vras a dryness in his voice not unlike the 
prevailing atmosphere of the valley, as he launched 
into an ex parte statement of the contest, with a 
fluency, which, like the wind without, showed fre- 
quent and unrestrained expression. He told me 
— what I had already learned — that the boundary 
line of the old Spanish grant was a creek, described 
in the loose phraseology of the deseno as beginning 
in the valda or skirt of the hill, its precise loca- 
tion long the subject of litigation. I listened and 
answered with little interest, for my mind was still 
distracted by the wind which swept violently by 
the house, as well as by his odd face, which was 
again reflected in the resemblance that the silent 
group by the fire bore toward him. He was still 
talking, and the wind was yet blowing, when my 
confused attention was aroused by a remark ad- 
dressed to the recumbent figures. 

“ How, then, which on ye ’ll see the stranger up 
the creek to Altascar’s, to-morrow ? ” 

9* 


202 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


There was a general movement of opposition in 
the group, but no decided answer. 

“ Kin you go, Kerg ? ” 

“ Who ’s to look up stock in Strarberry per- 
ar-ie ? ” 

This seemed to imply a negative, and the old 
man turned to another hopeful, who was pulling 
the fur from a mangy bear-skin on which he was 
lying, with an expression as though it were some- 
body’s hair. 

“ Well, Tom, wot ’s to hinder you from goin’ ? ” 

“ Mam ’s goin’ to Brown’s store at sun-up, and I 
s’pose I ’ve got to pack her and the baby agin.” 

I think the expression of scorn this unfortunate 
youth exhibited for the filial duty into which he 
had been evidently beguiled, was one of the finest 
things I had ever seen. 

“ Wise ? ” 

Wise deigned no verbal reply, but figuratively 
thrust a worn and patched boot into the discourse. 
The old man flushed quickly. 

“ I told ye to get Brown to give you a pair the 
last time you war down the river.” 

“ Said he would n’t without’ en order. Said it 
was like pulling gum-teeth to get the money from 
you even then.” 

There was a grim smile at this local hit at the 
old man’s parsimony, and Wise, who was clearly 
the privileged wit of the family, sank back in hon- 
orable retirement. 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 203 

"Well, Joe, ef your boots are new, and you are 
n’t pestered with wimmin and children, p’r’aps 
you’ll go,” said Tryan, with a nervous twitching, 
intended for a smile, about a mouth not remarkably 
mirthful. 

Tom lifted a pair of bushy eyebrows, and said 
shortly, — 

" Got no saddle.” 

“ Wot ’s gone of your saddle ? ” 

"Kerg, there,” — indicating his brother with a 
look such as Cain might have worn at the sacrifice. 

"You lie ! ” returned Kerg, cheerfully. 

Tryan sprang to his feet, seizing the chair, flour- 
ishing it around his head and gazing furiously in 
the hard young faces which fearlessly met his own. 
But it was only for a moment; his arm soon 
dropped by his side, and a look of hopeless fatality 
crossed his face. He allowed me to take the chair 
from his hand, and I was trying to pacify him by 
the assurance that I required no guide, when the 
irrepressible Wise again lifted his voice : — 

" Theer ’s George cornin’ ! why don’t ye ask him ? 
He ’ll go and introduce you to Don Fernandy’s 
darter, too, ef you ain’t pertickler.” 

The laugh which followed this joke, which evi- 
dently had some domestic allusion (the general 
tendency of rural pleasantry), was followed by a 
light step on the platform, and the young man en- 
tered. Seeing a. stranger present, he stopped and 


204 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


colored ; made a shy salute and colored again, and 
then, drawing a box from the corner, sat down, his 
hands clasped lightly together and his very hand- 
some bright blue eyes turned frankly on mine. 

Perhaps I was in a condition to receive the ro- 
mantic impression he made upon me, and I took 
it upon myself to ask his company as guide, and 
he cheerfully assented. But some domestic duty 
called him presently away. 

The fire gleamed brightly on the hearth, and, no 
longer resisting the prevailing influence, I silently 
watched the spirting flame, listening to the wind 
which continually shook the tenement. Besides 
the one chair which had acquired a new impor- 
tance in my eyes, I presently discovered a crazy 
table in one corner, with an ink-bottle and pen ; the 
latter in that greasy state of decomposition pecu- 
liar to country taverns and farm-houses. A goodly 
array of rifles and double-barrelled guns stocked 
the corner ; half a dozen saddles and blankets lay 
near, with a mild flavor of the horse about them. 
Some deer and bear skins completed the inventory. 
As I sat there, with the silent group around me, 
the shadowy gloom within and the dominant wind 
without, I found it difficult to believe I had ever 
known a different existence. My profession had 
often led me to wilder scenes, but rarely among 
those whose unrestrained habits and easy uncon- 
sciousness made me feel so lonely and uncomfort- 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


205 


able. I shrank closer to myself, not without grave 
doubts — which I think occur naturally to people 
in like situations — that this was the general rule 
of humanity, and I was a solitary and somewhat 
gratuitous exception. 

It was a relief when a laconic announcement of 
supper by a weak-eyed girl caused a general move- 
ment in the family. We walked across the dark 
platform, which led to another low-ceiled room. 
Its entire length was occupied by a table, at the 
farther end of which a weak-eyed woman was al- 
ready taking her repast, as she, at the same time, 
gave nourishment to a weak-eyed baby. As the 
formalities of introduction had been dispensed 
with, and as she took no notice of me, I was enabled 
to slip into a seat without discomposing or inter- 
rupting her. Tryan extemporized a grace, and the 
attention of the family became absorbed in bacon, 
potatoes, and dried apples. 

The meal was a sincere one. Gentle gurglings 
at the upper end of the table often betrayed the 
presence of the “wellspring of pleasure.” The 
conversation generally referred to the labors of the 
day, and comparing notes as to the whereabouts 
of missing stock. Yet the supper was such a vast 
improvement upon the previous intellectual feast, 
that when a chance allusion of mine to the busi- 
ness of my visit brought out the elder Tryan, the 
interest grew quite exciting. I remember he in- 


206 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


veighed bitterly against the system of ranch-hold- 
ing by the “ greasers/’ as he was pleased to term 
the native Californians. As the same ideas have 
been sometimes advanced under more pretentious 
circumstances, they may be worthy of record. 

“ Look at ’em holdin’ the finest grazin’ land that 
ever lay outer doors ? Whar ’s the papers for it ? 
Was it grants ? Mighty fine grants, — most of 
’em made arter the ’Merrikans got possession. 
More fools the ’Merrikans for lettin’ ’em hold ’em. 
Wat paid for ’em ? ’Merrikan blood and money. 

“ Did n’t they oughter have suthin out of their 
native country ? Wot for ? Did they ever im- 
prove ? Got a lot of yaller-skinned diggers, not 
so sensible as niggers to look arter stock, and they 
a sittin’ home and smokin’. With their gold and 
silver candlesticks, and missions, and crucifixens, 
priests and graven idols, and sich ? Them sort 
things wurent allowed in Mizzoori.” 

At the mention of improvements, I involun- 
tarily lifted my eyes, and met the half-laughing, 
half-embarrassed look of George. The act did 
not escape detection, and I had at once the sat- 
isfaction of seeing that the rest of the family had 
formed an offensive alliance against us. 

“It was agin Hater, and agin God,” added 
Tryan. “ God never intended gold in the rocks to 
be made into heathen candlesticks and crucifixens. 
That ’s why he sent ’Merrikins here. Hater never 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 207 

intended such a climate for lazy lopers. She 
never gin six months’ sunshine to he slept and 
smoked away.” 

How long he continued, and with what further 
illustration I could not say, for I took an early op- 
portunity to escape to the sitting-room. I was 
soon followed by George, who called me to an open 
door leading to a smaller room, and pointed to a 
bed. 

“You’d better sleep there to-night,” he said; 
“ you ’ll be more comfortable, and I ’ll call you 
early.” 

I thanked him, and would have asked him 
several questions which were then troubling me, 
but he shyly slipped to the door and vanished. 

A shadow seemed to fall on the room when he 
had gone. The “ boys ” returned, one by one, and 
shuffled to their old places. A larger log was 
thrown on the fire, and the huge chimney glowed 
like a furnace, but it did not seem to melt or sub- 
due a single line of the hard faces that it lit. In 
half an hour later, the furs which had served as 
chairs by day undertook the nightly office of mat- 
tresses, and each received its owner’s full-length 
figure. Mr. Tryan had not returned, and I missed 
George. I sat there, until, wakeful and nervous, I 
saw the fire fall and shadows mount the wall. 
There was no sound but the rushing of the wind 
and the snoring of the sleepers. At last, feeling 


208 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


the place insupportable, I seized my hat and, opem 
ing the door, ran out briskly into the night. 

The acceleration of my torpid pulse in the keel* 
fight with the wind, whose violence was almost 
equal to that of a tornado, and the familiar face& 
of the bright stars above me, I felt as a blessed 
relief. I ran not knowing whither, and when I 
halted, the square outline of the house was lost 
in the alder-bushes. An uninterrupted plain 
stretched before me, like a vast sea beaten flat by 
the force of the gale. As I kept on I noticed a 
slight elevation toward the horizon, and presently 
my progress was impeded by the ascent of an In- 
dian mound. It struck me forcibly as resembling 
an island in the sea. Its height gave me a bet* 
ter view of the expanding plain. But even hero 
I found no rest. The ridiculous interpretation 
Tryan had given the climate was somehow sung 
in my ears, and echoed in my throbbing .puke, 
as, guided by the star, I sought the house again. 

But I felt fresher and more natural as I stepped 
upon the platform. The door of the lower build- 
ing was open, and the old man was sitting beside 
the table, thumbing the leaves of a Bible with a 
look in his face as though he were hunting up 
prophecies against the “ Greaser.” I turned to 
enter, but my attention was attracted by a blank- 
eted figure lying beside the house, on the platform. 
The broad chest heaving with healthy slumber. 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


209 


and the open, honest face were familiar. It was 
George, who had given up his bed to the stranger 
among his people. I was about to wake him, but 
he lay so peaceful and quiet, I felt awed and 
hushed. And I went to bed with a pleasant im- 
pression of his handsome face and tranquil figure 
soothing me to sleep. 

I was awakened the next morning from a sense 
of lulled repose and grateful silence by the cheery 
voice of George, who stood beside my bed, osten- 
tatiously twirling a “ riata,” as if to recall the 
duties of the day to my sleep-bewildered eyes. I 
looked around me. The wind had been magically 
laid, and the sun shone warmly through the win- 
dows. A dash of cold water, with an extra chill 
on from the tin basin, helped to brighten me. It 
was still early, but the family had already break- 
fasted' and dispersed, and a wagon winding far in 
the distance showed that the unfortunate Tom had 
already “ packed ” his relatives away. I felt more 
cheerful, — there are few troubles Youth cannot 
distance with the start of a good night’s rest. 
After a substantial breakfast, prepared by George, 
in a few moments we were mounted and dashing 
down the’ plain. 

We followed the line of alder that defined the 
creek, now dry and baked with summer’s heat, 
but which in winter, George told me, overflowed 


210 NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 

its banks. I still retain a vivid impression of that 
morning’s ride, the far-off mountains, like silhouettes, 
against the steel-blue sky, tbe crisp dry air, and 
the expanding track before me, animated often by 
the well-knit figure of George Tryan, musical with 
jingling spurs, and picturesque with flying “ riata.” 
He rode a powerful native roan, wild-eyed, un- 
tiring in stride and unbroken in nature. Alas ! 
the curves of beauty were concealed by the cum- 
brous machillas of the Spanish saddle, which lev- 
els all equine distinctions. The single rein lay 
loosely on the cruel bit that can gripe, and, if need 
be, crush the jaw it controls. 

Again the illimitable freedom of the valley rises 
before me, as we again bear down into sunlit 
space. Can this be “ Chu-Chu,” staid and respect- 
able filly of American pedigree, — “ Chu-Chu,” for- 
getful of plank-roads and cobble-stones, wild with 
excitement, twinkling her small white feet beneath 
me ? George laughs out of a cloud of dust, “ Give 
her her head ; don’t you see she likes it ? ” and 
“ Chu-Chu” seems to like it, and, whether bitten 
by native tarantula into native barbarism or 
emulous of the roan, “blood” asserts itself, and 
in a moment the peaceful servitude of years is 
beaten out in the music of her clattering hoofs. 
The creek widens to a deep gully. We dive into 
it and up on the opposite side, carrying a moving 
cloud of impalpable powder with us. Cattle are 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 211 

scattered over the plain, grazing quietly, or banded 
together in vast restless herds. George makes a 
wide, indefinite sweep with the “riata,” as if to 
include them all in his vaquero’s loop, and says, 
“ Ours!” 

“ About how many, George ? ” 

“ Don’t know.” 

“ How many ? ” 

“ Well, p’r’aps three thousand head,” says George, 
reflecting. “ We don’t know, takes five men to 
look ’em up and keep run.” 

“ What are they worth ? ” 

“ About thirty dollars a head.” 

I make a rapid calculation, and look my astonish- 
ment at the laughing George. Perhaps a recollec- 
tion of the domestic economy of the Tryan house- 
hold is expressed in that look, for George averts 
his eye and says, apologetically, — 

“I ’ve tried to get the old man to sell and 
build, but you know he says it ain’t no use to 
settle down, just yet. We must keep movin’. 
In fact, he* built the shanty for that purpose, lest 
titles should fall through, and we ’d have to get 
up and move stakes further down.” 

Suddenly his quick eye detects some unusual 
sight in a herd we are passing, and with an ex- 
clamation he puts his roan into the centre of the 
mass. I follow, or rather “ Chu-Chu ” darts after 
the roan, and in a few moments we are in the 


212 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


midst of apparently inextricable horns and hoofs. 
“ Toro ! ” shouts George, with vaquero enthusiasm, 
and the band opens a way for the swinging “ riata.” 
I can feel their steaming breaths, and their spume 
is cast on “ Chu-Chu’s ” quivering flank. 

Wild, devilish-looking beasts are they ; not 
such shapes as Jove might have chosen to woo a 
goddess, nor such as peacefully range the downs of 
Devon, but lean and hungry Cassius-like bovines, 
economically got up to meet the exigencies of a 
six months’ rainless climate, and accustomed to 
wrestle with the distracting wind and the blind- 
ing dust. 

“ That ’s not our brand,” says George ; “ they ’re 
strange stock,” and he points to what my scientific 
eye recognizes as the astrological sign of Venus 
deeply seared in the brown flanks of the bull he is 
chasing. But the herd are closing round us with 
low mutterings, and George has again recourse to 
the authoritative “ Toro,” and with swinging “ riata ” 
divides the “ bossy bucklers ” on either side. When 
we are free, and breathing somewhat more easily, I 
venture to ask George if they ever attack any 
one. 

“Never horsemen, — sometimes footmen. Not 
through rage, you know, but curiosity. They think 
a man and his horse are one, and if they meet a 
chap afoot, they run him down and trample him 
under hoof, in the pursuit of knowledge. But,” 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


213 


adds George, “here ’s the lower bench of the foot- 
hills, and here ’s Altascar’s corral, and that white 
building you see yonder is the casa.” 

A whitewashed wall enclosed a court containing 

o 

another adobe building, baked with the solar beams 
of many summers. Leaving our horses in the charge 
of a few peons in the courtyard, who were basking 
lazily in the sun, we entered a low doorway, where 
a deep shadow and an agreeable coolness fell upon 
us, as sudden and grateful as a plunge in cool 
water, from its contrast with the external glare 
and heat. In the centre of a low-ceiled apartment 
sat an old man with a black silk handkerchief tied 
about his head; the few gray hairs that escaped 
from its folds relieving his gamboge-colored face. 
The odor of cigarritos was as incense added to the 
cathedral gloom of the building. 

As Senor Altascar rose with well-bred gravity 
to receive us, George advanced with such a height- 
ened color, and such a blending of tenderness and 
respect in his manner, that I was touched to the 
heart by so much devotion in the careless youth. 
In fact, my eyes were still dazzled by the effect of 
the outer sunshine, and at first I did not see the 
white teeth and black eyes of Pepita, who slipped 
into the corridor as we entered. 

It was no pleasant matter to disclose particulars 
of business which would deprive the old Senor of 
the greater part of that land we had just ridden 


214 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


over, and I did it with great embarrassment. But 
he listened calmly, — not a muscle of his dark face 
stirring, — and the smoke curling placidly from 
his lips showed his regular respiration. When I 
had finished, he offered quietly to accompany us 
to the line of demarcation. George had mean- 
while disappeared, but a suspicious conversation in 
broken Spanish and English, in the corridor, be- 
trayed his vicinity. When he returned again, a 
little absent-minded, the old man, by far the cool- 
est and most self-possessed of the party, ^ extin- 
guished his black silk cap beneath that stiff, un- 
comely sombrero which all native Californians 
affect. A serapa thrown over his shoulders hinted 
that he was waiting. Horses are always ready 
saddled in Spanish ranchos, and in half an hour 
from the time of our arrival we were again “ lop- 
ing ” in the staring sunlight. 

But not as cheerfully as before. George and 
myself were weighed down by restraint, and Altas- 
car was gravely quiet. To break the silence, and 
by way of a consolatory essay, I hinted to him 
that there might be further intervention or appeal, 
but the proffered oil and wine were returned with 
a careless shrug of the shoulders and a senten- 
tious “ Que bueno ? — Your courts are always 
just.” 

The Indian mound of the previous night’s dis- 
covery was a bearing monument of the new line, 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


215 


and there we halted. We were surprised to find 
the old man Tryan waiting us. For the first time 
during our interview the old Spaniard seemed 
moved, and the blood rose in his yellow cheek. 
I was anxious to close the scene, and pointed out 
the corner boundaries as clearly as my recollection 
served. 

“ The deputies will be here to-morrow to run 
the lines from this initial point, and there will be 
no further trouble, I believe, gentlemen.” 

Senor Altascar had dismounted and was gather- 
ing a few tufts of dried grass in his hands. George 
and I exchanged glances. He presently arose from 
his stooping posture, and, advancing to within a 
few T paces of Joseph Tryan, said, in a voice broken 
with passion, — 

“And I, Fernando Jesus Maria Altascar, put 
you in possession of my land in the fashion of my 
country.” 

He threw a sod to each of the cardinal points. 

“ I don’t know your courts, your judges, or your 
corregidores. Take the llano ! — and take this 
with it. May the drought seize your cattle till 
their tongues hang down as long as those of your 
lying lawyers ! May it be the curse and torment 
of your old age, as you and yours have made it of 
mine ! ” 

We stepped between the principal actors in this 
scene, which only the passion of Altascar made 


216 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


tragical, but Tryan, with a humility but ill con- 
cealing his triumph, interrupted : — 

“ Let him curse on. He ’ll find ’em coming home 
to him sooner than the cattle he has lost through 
his sloth and pride. The Lord is on the side of 
the just, as well as agin all slanderers and re- 
vilers.” 

Altascar but half guessed the meaning of the 
Missourian, yet sufficiently to drive from his mind 
all but the extravagant power of his native in- 
vective. 

“ Stealer of the Sacrament ! Open not ! — open 
not, I say, your lying, Judas lips to me ! Ah ! 
half-breed, with the soul of a cay ote ! — Car-r-r- 
ramba ! ” 

With his passion reverberating among the con- 
sonants like distant thunder, he laid his hand 
upon the mane of his horse as though it had been 
the gray locks of his adversary, swung himself 
into the saddle and galloped away. 

George turned to me : — 

“Will you go back with us to-night ?” 

I thought of the cheerless walls, the silent figures 
by the fire, and the roaring wind, and hesitated. 

“Well then, good by.” 

“ Good by, George.” 

Another wring of the hands, and we parted. I 
had not ridden far, when I turned and looked back. 
The wind had risen early that afternoon, and was 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


217 


already sweeping across the plain. A cloud of dust 
travelled before it, and a picturesque figure occa- 
sionally emerging therefrom was my last indistinct 
impression of George Tryan. 


PART II. — IN THE FLOOD. 

Three months after the survey of the Espiritu 
Santo Rancho, I was again in the valley of the 
Sacramento. But a general and terrible visitation 
had erased the memory of that event as completely 
as I supposed it had obliterated the boundary 
monuments I had planted. The great flood of 
1861-62 was at its height, when, obeying some 
indefinite yearning, I took my carpet-bag and em- 
barked for the inundated valley. 

There was nothing to be seen from the bright 
cabin windows of the “Golden City” but night 
deepening over the water. The only sound was 
the pattering rain, and that had grown monoto- 
nous for the past two weeks, and did not disturb 
the Rational gravity ef my countrymen as they 
silently sat* around the cabin stove. Some on 
errands of relief to friends and relatives wore 
anxious faces, and conversed soberly on the one 
absorbing . topic. Others, like myself, attracted by 
curiosity, listened eagerly to newer details. But 
10 


218 NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 

with that human disposition to seize upon any 
circumstance that might give chance event the 
exaggerated importance of instinct, I was half 
conscious of something more than curiosity as an 
impelling motive. 

The dripping of rain, the low gurgle of water, 
and a leaden sky greeted us the next morning as 
we lay beside the half-submerged levee of Sacra- 
mento. Here, however, the novelty of boats to 
convey us to the hotels was an appeal that was 
irresistible. I resigned myself to a dripping rub- 
ber-cased mariner called “ Joe” and, wrapping my- 
self in a shining cloak of the like material, about 
as suggestive of warmth as court-plaster might 
have been, took my seat in the stern-sheets of his 
boat. It was no slight inward struggle to part 
from the steamer, that to most of the passengers 
was the only visible connecting link between us 
and the dry and habitable earth, but we pulled 
away and entered the city, stemming a rapid cur- 
rent as we shot the levee. 

We glided up the long level of K Street, — once 
a cheerful, busy thoroughfare, now distressing in 
its silent desolation. The turbid water which seemed 
to meet the horizon edge before us flowed at right 
angles in sluggish rivers through the streets. Na- 
ture had revenged herself on the local taste by 
disarraying the regular rectangles by huddling 
houses on street corners, where they presented 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


219 


abrupt gables to the current, or by capsizing them 
in compact ruin. Crafts of all kinds were gliding 
in and out of low-arched doorways. The water 
was over the top of the fences surrounding well- 
kept gardens, in the first stories of hotels and 
private dwellings, trailing its slime on velvet car- 
pets as well as roughly boarded floors. And a 
silence quite as suggestive as the visible deso- 
lation was in the voiceless streets that no longer 
echoed to carriage-wheel or footfall. The low 
ripple of water, the occasional splash of oars, or 
the warning cry of boatmen were the few signs of 
life and habitation. 

With such scenes before my eyes and such 
sounds in my ears, as I lie lazily in the boat, is 
mingled the song of my gondolier who sings to the 
music of his oars. It is not quite as romantic as 
his brother of the Lido might improvise, but my 
Yankee “ Giuseppe ” has the advantage of earnest- 
ness and energy, and gives a graphic description 
of the terrors of the past week and of noble deeds 
of self-sacrifice and devotion, occasionally pointing 
out a balcony from which some California Bianca 
or Laura had been snatched, half clothed and fam- 
ished. Giuseppe is otherwise peculiar, and re- 
fuses the proffered fare, for — am I not a citizen 
of San Francisco, which was first to respond to the 
suffering cry of Sacramento ? and is not he, Giu- 
seppe, a member of the Howard Society ? No ! 


220 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


Giuseppe is poor, but cannot take my money. 
Still, if I must spend it, there is the Howard 
Society, and the women and children without food 
and clothes at the Agricultural Hall. 

I thank the generous gondolier, and we go to 
the Hall, — a dismal, bleak place, ghastly with 
the memories of last year’s opulence and plenty, 
and here Giuseppe’s fare is swelled by the stranger’s 
mite. But here Giuseppe tells me of the “ Belief 
Boat ” which leaves for the flooded district in the 
interior, and here, profiting by the lesson he has 
taught me, I make the resolve to turn my curi- 
osity to the account of others, and am accepted of 
those who go forth to succor and help the afflicted. 
Giuseppe takes charge of my carpet-bag, and does 
not part from me until I stand on the slippery 
deck of “ Belief Boat Ho. 3.” 

An hour later I am in the pilot-house, looking 
down upon what was once the channel of a peace- 
ful river. But its banks are only defined by tossing 
tufts of willow washed by the long swell that 
breaks over a vast inland sea. Stretches of “ tule ” 
land fertilized by its once regular channel and 
dotted by flourishing ranchos are now cleanly 
erased. The cultivated profile of the old land- 
scape had faded. Dotted lines in symmetrical 
perspective mark orchards that are buried and 
chilled in the turbid flood. The roofs of a few 
farm-houses are visible, and here and there the 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


221 


smoke curling from chimneys of half-submerged 
tenements show an undaunted life within. Cattle 
and sheep are gathered on Indian mounds waiting 
the fate of their companions whose carcasses drift 
by us, or swing in eddies with the wrecks of barns 
and out-houses. Wagons are stranded everywhere 
where the tide could carry them. As I wipe the 
moistened glass, I see nothing but water, pattering 
on the deck from the lowering clouds, dashing 
against the window, dripping from the willows, 
hissing by the wheels, everywhere washing, coil- 
ing, sapping, hurrying in rapids, or swelling at last 
into deeper and vaster lakes, awful in their sug- 
gestive quiet and concealment. 

As day fades into night the monotony of this 
strange prospect grows oppressive. I seek the 
engine-room, and in the company of some of the 
few half-drowned sufferers we have already picked 
up from temporary rafts, I forget the general 
aspect of desolation in their individual misery. 
Later we. meet the San Francisco packet, and 
transfer a number of our passengers. From them 
we learn how inward-bound vessels report to hav- 
ing struck the well-defined channel of the Sa- 
cramento, fifty miles beyond the bar. There is 
a voluntary contribution taken among the gener- 
ous travellers for the use of our afflicted, and we 
part company with a hearty “ God speed ” on 
either side. But our signal-lights are not far dis- 


222 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


tant before a familiar sound conies back to us, — 
an indomitable Yankee cheer, — which scatters the 
gloom. 

Our course is altered, and we are steaming over 
the obliterated banks far in the interior. Once or 
twice black objects loom up near us, — the wrecks 
of houses floating by. There is a slight rift in the 
sky towards the north, and a few bearing stars to 
guide us over the waste. As we penetrate into 
shallower water, it is deemed advisable to divide 
our party into smaller boats, and diverge over the 
submerged prairie. I borrow a pea-coat of one of 
the crew, and in that practical disguise am doubt- 
fully permitted to pass into one of the boats. We 
give way northerly. It is quite dark yet, although 
the rift of cloud has widened. 

It must have been about three o’clock, and we 
were lying upon our oars in an eddy formed by a 
clump of cottonwood, and the light of the steamer 
is a solitary, bright star in the distance, when the 
silence is broken by the “ boW oar ” : — 

“ Light ahead.” 

All eyes are turned in that direction. In a few 
seconds a twinkling light appears, shines steadily, 
and again disappears as if by the shifting position 
of some black object apparently drifting close 
upon us. 

“ Stern, all ; a steamer ! ” 

“ Hold hard there ! Steamer be d — d ! ” is the 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 223 

reply of the coxswain. “ It ’s a house, and a big 
one too.” 

It is a big one, looming in the starlight like a 
huge fragment of the darkness. The light comes 
from a single candle, which shines through a 
window as the great shape swings by. Some 
recollection is drifting back to me with it, as I 
listen with beating heart. 

“ There ’s some one in it, by Heavens ! Give 
way, boys, — lay her alongside. Handsomely, now ! 
The door’s fastened; try the window ; no! here’s 
another ! ” 

In another moment we are trampling in the 
water, which washes the floor to the depth of sev- 
eral inches. It is a large room, at the further end? 
of which an old man is sitting wrapped in a 
blanket, holding a candle in one hand, and appar- 
ently absorbed in the book he holds with the 
other. I spring toward him with an exclama- 
tion : — 

“ Joseph Tryan ! ” 

He does not move. We gather closer to him, 
and I lay my hand gently on his shoulder, and 
say : — 

“ Look up, old man, look up ! Your wife and 
children, where are they ? The boys, — George ! 
Are they here ? are they safe ? ” 

He raises his head slowly, and turns his eyes to 
mine, and we involuntarily recoil before his look. 


224 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


It is a calm and quiet glance, free from fear, anger, 
or pain ; but it somehow sends the blood curdling 
through our veins. He bowed his head over his 
book again, taking no further notice of us. The 
men look at me compassionately, and hold their 
peace. I make one more effort : — 

“ Joseph Tryan, don’t you know me ? the sur- 
veyor who surveyed your ranch, — the Espiritu 
Santo ? Look up, old man ! ” 

He shuddered and wrapped himself closer in his 
blanket. Presently he repeated to himself, “ The 
surveyor who surveyed your ranch, — Espiritu 
Santo,” over and over again, as though it were a 
lesson he was trying to fix in his memory. 

I was turning sadly to the boatmen, when he 
suddenly caught me fearfully by the hand and 
said, — 

“ Hush!” 

We were silent. 

“ Listen ! ” He puts his arm around my neck 
and whispers in my ear, “ I ’m a movinq off ! ” 

“ Moving off?” 

“ Hush ! Don’t speak so loud. Moving off. 
Ah ! wot ’s that ? Don’t you hear ? — there ! lis- 
ten !” 

We listen, and hear the water gurgle and click 
beneath the floor. 

“ It ’s them wot he sent ! — Old Altascar sent. 
They ’ve been here all night. I heard ’em first in 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 22 5 

the creek, when they came to tell the old man to 
move farther off. They came nearer and nearer. 
They whispered nnder the door, and I saw their 
eyes on the step, — their cruel, hard eyes. Ah, 
why don’t they quit ? ” 

I tell the men to search the room and see if they 
can find any further traces of the family, while 
Tryan resumes his old attitude. It is so much 
like the figure I remember on the breezy night 
that a superstitious feeling is fast overcoming me. 
When they have returned, I tell them briefly what 
I know of him, and the old man murmurs again, — 

“ Why don’t they quit, then ? They have the 
stock, — all gone — gone, gone for the hides and 
hoofs,” and he groans bitterly. 

“ There are other boats below us. The shanty 
cannot have drifted far, and perhaps the family are 
safe by this time,” says the coxswain, hopefully. 

We lift the old man up, for he is quite helpless, 
and carry him to the boat. He is still grasping 
the Bible in his right hand, though its strengthen- 
ing grace is blank to his vacant eye, and he cowers 
in the stern as we pull slowly to the steamer, while 
a pale gleam in the sky shows the coming day. 

I was weary with excitement, and when we 
reached the steamer, and I had seen Joseph Tryan 
comfortably bestowed, I wrapped myself in a 
blanket near the boiler and presently fell asleep. 
But even then the figure of the old man often started 
10* o 


226 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


before me, and a sense of uneasiness about George 
made a strong undercurrent to my drifting dreams. 
I was awakened at about eight o’clock in the 
morning by the engineer, who told me one of the 
old man’s sons had been picked up and was now on 
board. 

“ Is it George Tryan ? ” I ask quickly. 

“ Don’t know ; but he ’s a sweet one, whoever he 
is,” adds the engineer, with a smile at some luscious 
remembrance. “ You ’ll find him for’ard.” 

I hurry to the bow of the boat, and find, not 
George, but the irrepressible Wise, sitting on a 
coil of rope, a little dirtier and rather more dilapi- 
dated than I can remember having seen him. 

He is examining, with apparent admiration, some 
rough, dry clothes that have been put out for his 
disposal. I cannot help thinking that circum- 
stances have somewhat exalted his usual cheerful- 
ness. He puts me at my ease by at once address- 
ing me : — 

“ These are high old times, ain’t they ? I say, 
what do , you reckon ’s become o’ them thar 
bound’ry moniments you stuck ? Ah ! ” 

The pause which succeeds this outburst is the 
effect of a spasm of admiration at a pair of high 
boots, which, by great exertion, he has at last 
pulled on his feet. 

“ So you ’ve picked up the ole man in the 
shanty, clean crazy ? He must have been soft 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 227 

to have stuck there instead o’ leavin’ with the old 
woman. Did n’t know me from Adam ; took me 
for George ! ” 

At this affecting instance of paternal forgetful- 
ness, Wise was evidently divided between amuse- 
ment and chagrin. I took advantage of the con- 
tending emotions to ask about George. 

“ Don’t know whar he is ! If he ’d tended 
stock instead of running about the prairie, packin’ 
off wimmin and children, he might have saved 
suthin. He lost every hoof and hide, I ’ll bet a 
cookey ! Say you,” to a passing boatman, “ when 
are you goin’ to give us some grub ? I’m hungry 
’nough to skin and eat a hoss. Eeckon I ’ll turn 
butcher when things is dried up, and save hides, 
horns, /md taller.” 

I could not but admire this indomitable energy, 
which under softer climatic influences might have 
borne such goodly fruit. 

“ Have you any idea what you ’ll do, Wise ? ” I 
ask. 

“ Thar ain’t much to do now,” says the practical 
young man. “ I ’ll have to lay over a spell, I 
reckon, till things comes straight. The land ain’t 
worth much now, and won’t be, I dessay, for some 
time. Wonder whar the ole man ’ll drive stakes 
next.” 

“ I meant as to your father and George, Wise.” 

“ G, the ole man and I ’ll go on to f Miles’s, ’ whar 


228 NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 

Tom packed the old woman and babies last week. 
George ’ll turn up somewhar atween this and 
Altascar’s, ef he ain’t thar now.” 

I ask how the Altascars have suffered. 

“ Well, I feckon he ain’t lost much in stock. I 
should n’t wonder if George helped him drive ’em 
up the foot-hills. And his ‘ casa ’ ’s built too high. 
0, thar ain’t any water thar, you bet. Ah,” says 
Wise, with reflective admiration, “ those greasers 
ain’t the darned fools people thinks ’em. I ’ll bet 
thar hin’t one swamped out in all ’er Californy.” 
But the appearance of “ grub,” cut this rhapsody 
short. 

“ I shall keep on a little farther,” I say, “ and 
try to find George.” 

Wise stared a moment at this eccentricity until 
a new light dawned upon him. 

“ I don’t think you ’ll save much. What ’s the 
percentage, — workin’ on shares, eh ! ” 

I answer that I am only curious, which I feel 
lessens his opinion of me, and with a sadder feel- 
ing than his assurance of George’s safety might 
warrant, I walked away. 

From others whom we picked up from time to 
time we heard of George’s self-sacrificing devo- 
tion, with the praises of the many he had helped 
and rescued. But I did not feel disposed to re- 
turn until I had seen him, and soon prepared my- 
self to take a boat to the lower “ valda ” of the 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


229 


foot-hills, and visit Altascar. I soon perfected 
my arrangements, bade farewell to Wise, and took 
a last look at the old man, who was sitting by the 
furnace-fires quite passive and composed. Then 
our boat-head swung round, pulled by sturdy and 
willing hands. 

It was again raining, and a disagreeable wind 
had risen. Our course lay nearly west, and we 
soon knew by the strong current that we were in 
the creek of the Espiritu Santo. From time to 
time the wrecks of barns were seen, and we 
passed many half-submerged willows hung with 
farming implements. 

We emerge at last into a broad silent sea. It is 
the “ llano de Espiritu Santo.” As the wind whis- 
tles by me, piling the shallower fresh water into 
mimic waves, I go back, in fancy, to the long ride 
of October over that boundless plain, and recall 
the sharp outlines of the distant hills which are 
now lost in the lowering clouds. The men are 
rowing silently, and I find my mind, released from 
its tension, growing benumbed and depressed as 
then. The water, too, is getting more shallow as 
we leave the banks of the creek, and with my 
hand dipped listlessly over the thwarts, I detect 
the tops of chimisal, which shows the tide to have 
somewhat fallen. There is a black mound, bear- 
ing to the north of the line of alder, making an 
adverse current, which, as we sweep to the right to 


230 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


avoid, I recognize. We pull close alongside and 
I call to the men to stop. 

There was a stake driven near its summit with 
the initials, “ L. E. S. I.” Tied half-way down was 
a curiously worked “ riata.” It was George’s. It 
had been cut with some sharp instrument, and the 
loose gravelly soil of the mound was deeply dented 
with horse’s hoofs. The stake was covered with 
horse-hairs. It was a record, but no clew. 

The wind had grown more violent, as we still 
fought our way forward, resting and rowing by 
turns, and oftener “ poling ” the shallower surface, 
but the old “ valda,” or bench, is still distant. 
My recollection of the old survey enables me to 
guess the relative position of the meanderings of 
the creek, and an occasional simple professional 
experiment to determine the distance gives my 
crew the fullest faith in my ability. Night over- 
takes us in our impeded progress. Our condition 
looks more dangerous than it really is, but I urge 
the men, many of whom are still new in this mode 
of navigation, to greater exertion by assurance of 
perfect safety and speedy relief ahead. We go on 
in this way until about eight o’clock, and ground 
by the willows. We have a muddy walk for a 
few hundred yards before we strike a dry trail, 
and simultaneously the white walls of Altascar’s 
appear like a snow-bank before us. Lights are 
moving in the courtyard ; but otherwise the old 
tomb-like repose characterizes the building. 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


231 


One of the peons recognized me as I entered the 
court, and Altascar met me on the corridor. 

I was too weak to do more than beg his hospi- 
tality for the men who had dragged wearily with 
me. He looked at my hand, which still un- 
consciously held the broken “ riata.” I began, 
wearily, to tell him about George and my fears, 
but with a gentler 'courtesy than was even his 
Wont, he gravely laid his hand on my shoulder. 

“ Poco a poco Senor, — not now. You are tired, 
you have hunger, you have cold. Necessary it is 
you should have peace.” 

He took us into a small room and poured out 
some French cognac, which he gave to the men 
that had accompanied me. They drank and threw 
themselves before the fire in the larger room. The 
repose of the building was intensified that night, 
and I even fancied that the footsteps on the cor- 
ridor were lighter and softer. The old Spaniard’s 
habitual gravity was deeper ; we might have been 
shut out from the world as well as the whistling 
storm, behind those ancient walls with their time- 
worn inheritor. 

Before I could repeat my inquiry he retired. 
In a few minutes two smoking dishes of “ chupa ” 
with coffee were placed before us, and my men 
ate ravenously. I drank the coffee, but my ex- 
citement and weariness kept down the instincts 
of hunger. 


232 NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 

I was sitting sadly by the fire when he re-en- 
tered. 

“ You have eat ? ” 

I said, “Yes,” to please him. 

“ Bueno, eat when you can, — food and appetite 
are not always.” 

He said this with that Sancho-like simplicity 
with which most of his countrymen utter a 
proverb, as though it were an experience rather 
than a legend, and, taking the “ riata ” from the 
floor, held it almost tenderly before him. 

“ It was made by me, Senor.” 

“ I kept it as a clew to him, Don Altascar,” I 
said. “ If I could find him — ” 

“ He is here.” 

“ Here ! and ” — but I could not say, “ well ! ” 
I understood the gravity of the old man’s face, the 
hushed footfalls, the tomb-like repose of the build- 
ing in an electric flash of consciousness ; I held 
the clew to the broken riata at last. Altascar took 
my hand, and we crossed the corridor to a sombre 
apartment. A few tall candles were burning in 
sconces before the window. . 

In an alcove there was a deep bed with its 
counterpane, pillows, and sheets heavily edged 
with lace, in all that splendid luxury which the 
humblest of these strange people lavish upon this 
single item of their household. I stepped beside 
it and saw George lying, as I had seen him once 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


233 


before, peacefully at rest. But a greater sacrifice 
than that he had known was here, and his gen- 
erous heart was stilled forever. 

“ He was honest and brave,” said the old man, 
and turned away. 

There was another figure in the room ; a heavy 
shawl drawn over her graceful outline, and her 
long black hair hiding the hands that buried her 
downcast face. I did not seem to notice her, and, 
retiring presently, left the loving and loved to- 
gether. 

When we were again beside the crackling fire, 
in the shifting shadows of the great chamber, Al- 
tascar told me how he had that morning met the 
horse of George Tryan swimming on the prairie ; 
how that, farther on, he found him lying, quite 
cold and dead, with no marks or bruises on his 
person ; that he had probably become exhausted 
in fording the creek, and that he had as probably 
reached the mound only to die for want of that 
help he had so freely given to others ; that, as a 
last act, he had freed his horse. These incidents 
were corroborated by many who collected in the 
great chamber that evening, — women and chil- 
dren, — most of them succored through the de- 
voted energies of him who lay cold and lifeless 
above. 

He was buried in the Indian mound, — the 
single spot of strange perennial greenness, which 


234 


NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD. 


the poor aborigines had raised above the dusty- 
plain. A little slab of sandstone with the initials 
“ G-. T.” is his monument, and one of the bearings 
of the initial corner of the new survey of the 
“ Espiritu Santo Rancho.” 


BOHEMIAN PAPERS. 







'* V 

* 

.. . . 

■ 










THE MISSION DOLORES. 


HE Mission Dolores is destined to be “ The 



JL Last Sigh ” of the native Californian. When 
the last “Greaser” shall indolently give way to 
the bustling Yankee, I can imagine he will, like 
the Moorish King, ascend one of the Mission hills 
to take his last lingering look at the hilled city. 
Eor a long time he will cling tenaciously to Pacific 
Street. He will delve in the rocky fastnesses of 
Telegraph Hill until progress shall remove it. He 
will haunt Vallejo Street, and those back slums 
which so vividly typify the degradation of a peo- 
ple ; but he will eventually make way for improve- 
ment. The Mission will be last to drop from his 
nerveless fingers. 

As I stand here this pleasant afternoon, looking 
up at the old chapel, — its ragged senility con- 
trasting with the smart spring sunshine, its two 
gouty pillars with the plaster dropping away like 
tattered bandages, its rayless windows, its crum- 
bling entrances, the leper spots on its whitewashed 
wall eating through the dark adobe, — I give the 
poor old mendicant but a few years longer to sit 
by the highway and ask alms in the names of the 


238 


THE MISSION DOLORES. 


blessed saints. Already the vicinity is haunted with 
the shadow of its dissolution. The shriek of the 
locomotive discords with the Angelus bell. An 
Episcopal church, of a green Gothic type, with mas- 
sive buttresses of Oregon pine, even now mocks its 
hoary age with imitation and supplants it with a 
sham. Vain, alas ! were those rural accessories, the 
nurseries and market-gardens, that once gathered 
about its walls and resisted civic encroachment. 
They, too, are passing away. Even those queer lit- 
tle adobe buildings with tiled roofs like longitudi- 
nal slips of cinnamon, and walled enclosures sa- 
credly guarding a few bullock horns and strips of 
hide. I look in vain for the half-reclaimed Mexi- 
can, whose respectability stopped at his waist, and 
whose red sash under his vest was the utter undo- 
ing of his black broadcloth. I miss, too, those 
black-haired women, with swaying unstable busts, 
whose dresses were always unseasonable in texture 
and pattern ; whose wearing of a shawl was a ter- 
rible awakening from the poetic dream of the 
Spanish mantilla. Traces of another nationality 
are visible. The railroad “ navvy ” has builded his 
shanty near the chapel, and smokes his pipe in the 
Posada. Gutturals have taken the place of linguals 
and sibilants ; I miss the half-chanted, half-drawled 
cadences that used to mingle with the cheery “ All 
aboard ” of the stage-driver, in those good old days 
when the stages ran hourly to the Mission, and a 


THE MISSION DOLORES. 


239 


trip thither was an excursion. At the very gates 
of the temple, in the place of those “who sell 
doves for sacrifice,” a vender of mechanical 
spiders has halted with his unhallowed wares. 
Even the old Padre — last type of the Missionary, 
and descendant of the good Junipero — I cannot 
find to-day ; in his stead a light-haired Celt is 
reading a lesson from a Yulgate that is wonderfully 
replete with double r’s. Gentle priest, in thy R- 
isons, let the stranger and heretic be remembered. 

I open a little gate and enter the Mission Church- 
yard. There is no change here, though perhaps 
the graves lie closer together. A willow-tree, 
growing beside the deep, brown wall, has burst 
into tufted plumes in the fulness of spring. The 
tall grass-blades over each mound show a strange 
quickening of the soil below. It is pleasanter 
here than on the bleak mountain seaward, where 
distracting winds continually bring the strife and 
turmoil of the ocean. The Mission hills lovingly 
embrace the little cemetery, whose decorative taste 
is less ostentatious. The foreign flavor is strong ; 
here are never-failing garlands of immortelles, with 
their sepulchral spicery ; here are little cheap 
medallions of pewter, with the adornment of three 
black tears, that would look like the three of clubs, 
but that the simple humility of the inscription 1 
counterbalances all sense of the ridiculous. Here 
are children’s graves with guardian angels of great 


240 


THE MISSION DOLORES. 


specific gravity ; but here, too, are the little one’s 
toys in a glass case beside them. Here is the av- 
erage quantity of execrable original verses ; but 
one stanza — over a sailor’s grave — is striking, 
for it expresses a hope of salvation through the 
“ Lord High Admiral Christ ” ! Over the foreign 
graves there is a notable lack of scriptural quota- 
tion, and an increase, if I may say it, of humanity 
and tenderness. I cannot help thinking that too 
many of my countrymen are influenced by a mor- 
bid desire to make a practical point of this occa- 
sion, and are too apt hastily to crowd a whole life 
of omission into the culminating act. But when 
I see the gray immortelles crowning a tombstone, I 
know I shall find the mysteries of the resurrec- 
tion shown rather in symbols, and only the love 
taught in His new commandment left for the 
graphic touch. But “they manage these things 
better in France.” 

During my purposeless ramble the sun has been 
steadily climbing the brown wall of the church, 
and the air seems to grow cold and raw. The 
bright green dies out of the grass, and the rich 
bronze comes down from the wall. The willow- 
tree seems half inclined to doff its plumes, and 
wears the dejected air of a broken faith and vio- 
lated trust. The spice of the immortelles mixes 
with the incense that steals through the open win- 


THE MISSION DOLORES. 


241 


dow. Within, the barbaric gilt and crimson look 
cold and cheap in this searching air ; by this light 
the church certainly is old and ugly. I cannot 
help wondering whether the old Fathers, if they 
ever revisit the scene of their former labors, in their 
larger comprehensions, view with regret the im- 
pending change, or mourn over the day when the 
Mission Dolores shall appropriately come to grief. 


ll 


JOHN CHINAMAN. 



HE expression of the Chinese face in the 


1 aggregate is neither cheerful nor happy. In 
an acquaintance of half a dozen years, I can 
only recall one or two exceptions to this rule. 
There is an abiding consciousness of degradation, 
— a secret pain or self-humiliation visible in the 
lines of the mouth and eye. Whether it is only 
a modification of Turkish gravity, or whether it 
is the dread Valley of the Shadow of the Drug 
through which they are continually straying, I 
cannot say. They seldom smile, and their laugh- 
ter is of such an extraordinary and sardonic na- 
ture — so purely a mechanical spasm, quite inde- 
pendent of any mirthful attribute — that to this 
day I am doubtful whether I ever saw a Chinaman 
laugh. A theatrical representation by natives, 
one might think, would have set my mind at ease 
on this point ; but it did not. Indeed, a new dif- 
ficulty presented itself, — the impossibility of de- 
termining whether the performance was a tragedy 
or farce. I thought I detected the low comedian 
in an active youth who turned two somersaults, 
and knocked everybody down on entering the 


JOHN CHINAMAN. 


243 


stage. But, unfortunately, even tins classic resem- 
blance to the legitimate farce of our civilization 
was deceptive. Another brocaded actor, who rep- 
resented the hero of the play, turned three somer- 
saults, and not only upset my theory and his fel- 
low-actors at the same time, but apparently run 
a-muck behind the scenes for some time after- 
ward. I looked around at the glinting white 
teeth to observe the effect of these two palpable 
hits. They were received with equal acclamation, 
and apparently equal facial spasms. One or two 
beheadings which enlivened the play produced 
the same sardonic effect, and left upon my mind 
a painful anxiety to know what was the serious 
business of life in China. It was noticeable, how- 
ever, that my unrestrained laughter had a discord- 
ant effect, and that triangular eyes sometimes 
turned ominously toward the “Tanqui devil”; 
but as I retired discreetly before the play was 
finished, there were no serious results. I have 
only given the above as an instance of the impos- 
sibility of deciding upon the outward and superfi- 
cial expression of Chinese mirth. Of its inner 
and deeper existence I have some private doubts. 
An audience that will view with a serious aspect 
the hero, after a frightful and agonizing death, 
get up and quietly walk off the stage, cannot be 
said to have remarkable perceptions of the ludi- 


crous. 


244 


JOHN CHINAMAN. 


I have often "been struck with the delicate plia- 
bility of the Chinese expression and taste, that 
might suggest a broader and deeper criticism than 
is becoming these pages. A Chinaman will adopt 
the American costume, and wear it with a taste of 
color and detail that will surpass those “ native, 
and to the manner born.” To look at a Chinese 
slipper, one might imagine it impossible to shape 
the original foot to anything less cumbrous and 
roomy, yet a neater-fitting boot than that belong- 
ing to the Americanized Chinaman is rarely seen 
on this side of the Continent. When the loose 
sack or paletot takes the place of his brocade 
blouse, it is worn with a refinement and grace that 
might bring a jealous pang to the exquisite of our 
more refined civilization. Pantaloons fall easily 
and naturally over legs that have known unlimited 
freedom and bagginess, and even garrote collars 
meet correctly around sun-tanned throats. The 
new expression seldom overflows in gaudy cravats. 
I will back my Americanized Chinaman against 
any neophyte of European birth in the choice of 
that article. While in our own State, the Greaser 
resists one by one the garments of the Northern 
invader, and even wears the livery of his conqueror 
with a wild and buttonless freedom, the China- 
man, abused and degraded as he is, changes 
by correctly graded transition to the garments of 
Christian civilization. There is but one article of 


JOHN CHINAMAN. 


245 


European wear that he avoids. These Bohemian 
eyes have never yet been pained by the spectacle 
of a tall hat on the head of an intelligent China- 
man. 

My acquaintance with John has been made up 
of weekly interviews, involving the adjustment of 
the washing accounts, so that I have not been able 
to study his character from a social view-point or 
observe him in the privacy of the domestic circle. 
I have gathered enough to justify me in believing 
him to be generally honest, faithful, simple, and 
painstaking. Of his simplicity let me record an 
instance where a sad and civil young Chinaman 
.brought me certain shirts with most of the but- 
tons missing and others hanging on delusively by 
a single thread. In a moment of unguarded irony 
I informed him that unity would at least have 
been preserved if the buttons were removed alto- 
gether. He smiled sadly and went away. I 
thought I had hurt his feelings, until the next 
week when he brought me my shirts with a look of 
intelligence, and the buttons carefully and totally 
erased. At another time, to guard against liis 
general disposition to carry off anything as soiled 
clothes that he thought could hold water, I re- 
quested him to always wait until he saw me. 
Coming home late one evening, I found the house- 
hold in great consternation, over an immovable 
Celestial who had remained seated on the front 


246 


JOHN CHINAMAN. 


door-step during the day, sad and submissive, firm 
hut also patient, and only betraying any animation 
or token of his mission when he saw me coming* 
This same Chinaman evinced some evidences of 
regard for a little girl in the family, who in her 
turn reposed such faith in his intellectual qualities 
as to present him with a preternaturally unim 
teresting Sunday-school book, her own property 
This book John made a point of carrying osten- 
tatiously with him in his weekly visits. It ap- 
peared usually on the top of the clean clothes, 
and was sometimes painfully clasped outside of 
the big bundle of solid linen. Whether J ohn be- 
lieved he unconsciously imbibed some spiritual 
life through its pasteboard cover, as the Prince -in 
the Arabian Nights imbibed the medicine through 
the handle of the mallet, or whether he wished to 
exhibit a due sense of gratitude, or whether he 
hadn’t any pockets, I have never been able to 
ascertain. In his turn he would sometimes cut 
marvellous imitation roses from carrots for his lit- 
tle friend. I am inclined to think that the few 
roses strewn in John’s path were such scentless 
imitations. The thorns only were real. Prom the 
persecutions of the young and old of a certain 
class, his life was a torment. I don’t know what 
was the exact philosophy that Confucius taught, 
but it is to be hoped that poor John in his perse- 
cution is still able to detect the conscious hate 


JOHN CHINAMAN. 


247 


and fear with which inferiority always regards the 
possibility of even-handed justice, and which is 
the key-note to the vulgar clamor about servile 
and degraded races. 


FROM A BACK WINDOW. 


I REMEMBER that long ago, as a sanguine and 
trustful child, I became possessed of a highly- 
colored lithograph, representing a fair Circassian 
sitting by a window. The price I paid for this 
work of art may have been extravagant, even in 
youth’s fluctuating slate-pencil currency ; hut the 
secret joy I felt in its possession knew no pecuni- 
ary equivalent. It was not alone that Nature in 
Circassia lavished alike upon the cheek of beauty 
and the vegetable kingdom that most expensive of 
colors, — Lake; nor was it that the rose which 
bloomed beside the fair Circassian’s window had no 
visible stem, and was directly grafted upon a mar- 
ble balcony; hut it was because it embodied an 
idea. That idea was a hinting of my Fate. I felt 
that somewhere a young and fair Circassian was 
sitting by a window looking out for me. The 
idea of resisting such an array of charms and 
color never occurred to me, and to my honor he it 
recorded, that during the feverish period of adoles- 
cence I never thought of averting my destiny. 
But as vacation and holiday came and went, and 
as my picture at first grew blurred, and then faded 


FROM A BACK WINDOW. 


249 


quite away between the Eastern and Western con- 
tinents in my atlas, so its charm seemed mysteri- 
ously to pass ' away. When I became convinced 
that few females, of Circassian or other origin, sat 
pensively resting their chins on their henna-tinged 
nails, at their parlor windows, I turned my atten- 
tion to back windows. Although the fair* Circas- 
sian has not yet burst upon me with open shutters, 
some peculiarities not unworthy of note have 
fallen under my observation. This knowledge has 
not been gained without sacrifice. I have made 
myself familiar with back windows and their 
prospects, in the weak disguise of seeking lodg- 
ings, heedless of the suspicious glances of land- 
ladies and their evident reluctance to show them. 
I have caught cold by long exposure to draughts. 
I have become estranged from friends by uncon- 
sciously walking to their back windows during a 
visit, when the weekly linen hung upon the line, 
or where Miss Fanny (ostensibly indisposed) actu- 
ally assisted in the laundry, and Master Bobby, in 
scant attire, disported himself on the area railings. 
But I have thought of Galileo, and the invariable 
experience of all seekers and discoverers of truth 
has sustained me. 

Show me the back windows of a man’s dwelling, 
and I will tell you his character. The rear of a 
house only is sincere. The attitude of deception 
kept up at the front windows leaves the back area 


250 


FROM A BACK WINDOW. 


defenceless. The world enters at the front door, 
hut nature comes out at the hack passage. That 
glossy, well-hrushed individual, who lets himself 
in with a latch-key at the front door at night, is a 
very different being from the slipshod wretch who 
growls of mornings for hot water at the door of the 
kitchen. The same with Madame, whose contour 
of figure grows angular, whose face grows pallid, 
whose hair comes down, and who looks some ten 
years older through the sincere medium of a hack 
window. No wonder that intimate friends fail to 
recognize each other in this dos d dos position. 
You may imagine yourself familiar with the silver 
door-plate and how- windows of the mansion where 
dwells your Saccharissa ; you may even fancy you 
recognize her graceful figure between the lace cur- 
tains of the upper chamber which you fondly 
imagine to he hers ; hut you shall dwell for months 
in the rear of her dwelling and within whispering 
distance of her bower, and never know it. You 
shall see her with a handkerchief tied round her 
head in confidential discussion with the butcher, 
and know her not. You shall hear her voice in 
shrill expostulation with her younger brother, and 
it shall awaken no familiar response. 

I am writing at a hack window. As I prefer 
the warmth of my coal-fire to the foggy freshness 
of the afternoon breeze that rattles the leafless 
shrubs in the garden below me, I have my window- 


FROM A BACK WINDOW. 


251 


{sash closed ; consequently, I miss much of tlie 
shrilly altercation that has been going on in the 
kitchen of No. 7 just opposite. I have heard frag- 
ments of an entertaining style of dialogue usually 
known as “ chaffing,” which has just taken place 
between Biddy in No. 9 and the butcher who 
brings the dinner. I have been pitying the chilled 
aspect of a poor canary, put out to taste the fresh 
air, from the window of No. 5. I have been watch- 
ing — and envying, I fear — the real enjoyment of 
two children raking over an old dust-heap in the 
alley, containing the waste and debris of all the 
back yards in the neighborhood. What a wealth 
of soda-water bottles and old iron they have ac- 
quired ! But I am waiting for an even more fa- 
miliar prospect from my back window. I know 
that later in the afternoon, when the evening paper 
comes, a thickset, gray-haired man will appear in 
his shirt-sleeves at the back door of No. 9, and, 
seating himself on the door-step, begin to read. 
He lives in a pretentious house, and I hear he is a 
rich man. But there is such humility in his atti- 
tude, and such evidence of gratitude at being al- 
lowed to sit outside of his own house and read his 
paper in his shirt-sleeves, that I can picture his 
domestic history pretty clearly. Perhaps he is fol- 
lowing some old habit of humbler days. Perhaps 
he has entered into an agreement with his wife not 
to indulge his disgraceful habit in-doors. He does 


252 FROM A BACK WINDOW. 

not look like a man who could be coaxed into a 
dressing-gown. In front of his own palatial resi- 
dence, I know him to be a quiet and respectable 
middle-aged business-man, but it is from my back 
window that my heart warms toward him in his 
shirt-sleeved simplicity. So I sit and watch him 
in the twilight as he reads gravely, and wonder 
sometimes, when he looks up, squares his chest, and 
folds his paper thoughtfully over his knee, whether 
he does n’t fancy he hears the letting down of bars, 
or the tinkling of bells, as the cows come home 
and stand lowing for him at the gate. 


B OONDER. 


I NEVER knew how the subject of this memoir 
came to attach himself so closely to the affec- 
tions of my family. He was not a prepossessing 
dog. He was not a dog of even average birth and 
breeding. His pedigree was involved in the deep- 
est obscurity. He may have had brothers and 
sisters, but in the whole range of my canine ac- 
quaintance (a pretty extensive one), I never de- 
tected any of Boonder’s peculiarities in any other 
of his species. His body was long, and his fore- 
legs and hind-legs were very wide apart, as though 
Nature originally intended to put an extra pair be- 
tween them, but had unwisely allowed herself to 
be persuaded out of it. This peculiarity was an- 
noying on cold nights, as it always prolonged the 
interval of keeping the door open for Boonder’s 
ingress long enough to allow two or three dogs of 
a reasonable length to enter. Boonder’s feet were 
decided ; his toes turned out considerably, and in 
repose his favorite attitude was the first position 
of dancing. Add to a pair of bright eyes ears 
that seemed to belong to some other dog, and a 
symmetrically pointed nose that fitted all aper-^ 
tures like a pass-key, and you have Boonder as we 
knew him. 


254 


BOONDER. 


I am inclined to think that his popularity was 
mainly owing to his quiet impudence. His ad- 
vent in the family was that of an old member, 
who had been absent for a short time, but had 
returned to familiar haunts and associations. In 
a Pythagorean point of view this might have been 
the case, but I cannot recall any deceased member 
of the family who was in life partial to bone- 
burying (though it might be post mortem a con- 
sistent amusement), and this was Boonder’s great 
weakness. He was at first discovered coiled up 
on a rug in an upper chamber, and was the least 
disconcerted of the entire household. Prom that 
moment Boonder became one of its recognized 
members, and privileges, often denied the most in- 
telligent and valuable of his species, were qui- 
etly taken by him and submitted to by us. Thus, 
if he were found coiled up in a clothes-basket, 
or any article of clothing assumed locomotion 
on its own account, we only said, “ 0, it ’s Boon- 
der, ” with a feeling of relief that it was nothing 
worse. 

I have spoken of his fondness for bone-burying. 
It could not be called an economical faculty, for he 
invariably forgot the locality of his treasure, and 
covered the garden with purposeless holes ; but 
although the violets and daisies were not improved 
by Boonder’s gardening, no one ever thought of 
punishing him. He became a synonyme for Pate ; 
a Boonder to be grumbled at, to be accepted phil- 


BOONDER. 


255 


osophically, — but never to be averted. But al- 
though he was not an intelligent dog, nor an orna- 
namental dog, he possessed some gentlemanly 
instincts. When he performed his only feat, — 
begging upon his hind legs (and looking remarka- 
bly like a penguin), — ignorant strangers would 
offer him crackers or cake, which he did n’t like, as 
a reward of merit. Boonder always made a great 
show of accepting the proffered dainties, and even 
made hypocritical contortions as if swallowing, 
but always deposited the morsel when he was 
unobserved in the first convenient receptacle, — 
usually the visitor’s overshoes. 

In matters that did not involve courtesy, Boon- 
der was sincere in his likes and dislikes. He 
was instinctively opposed to the railroad. When 
the track was laid through our street, Boon- 
der maintained a defiant attitude toward every 
rail as it went down, and resisted the cars shortly 
after to the fullest extent of his lungs. I have 
a vivid recollection of seeing him, on the day 
of the trial trip, come down the street in front 
of the car, barking himself out of all shape, 
and thrown back several feet by the recoil of 
each bark. But Boonder was not the only one 
who has resisted innovations, or has lived to see 
the innovation prosper and even crush — But I 
am anticipating. Boonder had previously resisted 
the gas, but although he spent one whole day in 
angry altercation with the workmen, — leaving 


256 


BOONDER. 


his bones unburied and bleaching in the sun,— » 
somehow the gas went iir. The Spring Valley 
water was likewise unsuccessfully opposed, an(? 
the grading of an adjoining lot was for a long 
time a personal matter between Boonder and tho 
contractor. 

These peculiarities seemed to evince some de- 
cided character and embody some idea. A pro- 
longed debate in the family upon this topic re-* 
suited in an addition to his name, — we called 
him “ Boonder the Conservative,” with a faint 
acknowledgment of his fateful power. But, al- 
though Boonder had his own way, his path was 
not entirely of roses. Thorns sometimes pricked 
his sensibilities. When certain minor chords werd 
struck on the piano, Boonder was always painfully 
affected and howled a remonstrance. If he wer£ 
removed for company’s sake to the back yard, at 
the recurrence of the provocation, he would go his 
whole length (which was something) to improvise 
a howl that should reach the performer. But we 
got accustomed to Boonder, and as we were fond 
of music the playing went on. 

One morning Boonder left the house in good 
spirits with his regular bone in his mouth, and 
apparently the usual intention of burying it. The 
next day he was picked up lifeless on the track, — 
run over apparently by the first car that went out 
of the depot. 


: ii' . - 1 . ? 

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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proces 
Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: 


PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGIES, INi 


NS 


1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Twp., PA 16066 
(412) 779-2111 







